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ELLA  FLAGG  YOUNG 

AND  A  HALF-CENTURY  OF  THE 
CHICAGO  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS 


1 

Liii^H^\ 

1 

1 

By  courtesy  of  Chicago  Normal  College 


ELLA  FLAGG  YOUNG 
From  the  portrait  by  Louis  Betts  in  the  Chicago  Art  Institute 


Ella  Flagg  Young 

And  a  Half-  Century  of  the 
Chicago  Public  Schools 


BY 

JOHN  T.  McMANIS,  Ph.D. 


PORTRAITS,  ETC. 


CHICAGO 

A.  C.   McCLURG  &  CO. 

1916 


Copyright 

A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co. 

1916 


Published  September,  1916 


W.  F.  HALL  PRINTING  COMPANY,  CHICAGO 


lie'-uritiou 
Librarx 


PREFACE 

'T^HE  difficulties  encountered  in  writing  the  life  of 
-^  another  are  more  than  technical  difficulties.  To 
interpret  the  spirit  so  as  to  make  it  common  property 
requires  sympathy,  grasp,  and  insight,  balanced  with  a 
judgment  of  values  that  is  rare  in  all  of  us.  In  the 
case  of  Mrs.  Young  the  difficulties  are  particularly 
great.  Almost  no  help  in  such  an  undertaking  can  be 
derived  directly  from  her  or  from  her  immediate 
friends.  In  the  one  case,  her  interest  is  in  her  work 
and  not  in  herself,  making  it  impossible  to  secure  per- 
sonal touches  needed  to  understand  the  meaning  of  her 
acts;  in  the  other,  friends  are  jealous  of  relationships 
and  guard  them  closely.  Many  persons,  however,  have 
placed  their  best  efforts  into  this  work  and  made  it  pos- 
sible to  write  her  life.  To  such  I  am  under  the  greatest 
obligation  and  should  like  to  acknowledge  their  sym- 
pathetic and  invaluable  help. 

It  must  be  evident  that  the  worth  of  any  benefactor 
of  the  race  is  to  be  found  in  the  principles  for  which  he 
has  stood  rather  than  in  merely  personal  facts  and  pecul- 
iarities. I  have  endeavored  to  write  of  the  forces  and 
the  interests  for  which  Mrs.  Young  has  labored,  and 
only  secondarily  of  the  persons  who  have  worked  with 
her.  If  I  have  succeeded,  in  any  measure,  in  the  following 
pages  in  showing  the  strength  and  the  human  effective- 
ness of  Ella  Flagg  Young,  it  is  due  more  to  a  sympathy 
for  her  efforts  for  the  children  of  Chicago  than  to  any 
other  qualification.     "Institutions  are  but  the  length- 


Preface 

ened  shadows  of  great  men,"  and  It  Is  to  the  Institutions 
that  we  must  look  for  the  test  of  the  part  played  by 
each  human  being.  Judged  by  this  test,  Mrs.  Young 
should  have  a  high  place  among  those  who  have 
touched  the  bonds  of  Ignorance  and  tradition  and  loos- 
ened the  spirits  of  the  youth  of  a  great  city.  Her  real 
biography  Is  written  In  the  hearts  of  those  with  whom 
she  has  striven  to  make  the  public  schools  democratic 
in  reality  and  truth. 

J.  T.  McM. 

June,  1916. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  A  Half-Century  of  Change i 

II  Early  Life  and  Education 15 

III  Teaching  School  Fifty  Years  Ago  ....  29 

IV  Early  Training  of  Teachers  in  Chicago  and 

Mrs.  Young's  Part  in  It 44 

V    A  Chapter  in  the  History  of  Building  a  City 

School 56 

VI     School  Administration  from  1887  to  1899  as 

Shown  in  the  Work  of  Mrs.  Young  .     .     73 

VII     A  Clash  of  Ideals  in  School  Government    87 

VIII     Higher  Education  for  a  Woman  Past  Fifty  ioi 

IX     Administration  of  the  City  Normal  School  123 

X     Reorganizing  a  Time-Honored  Institution  144 

XI     Democracy  and  the   Superintendency  of 

Chicago  Schools 156 

XII  Making  Over  a  City  School  System  .  .  .175 
XIII  C-H-i-c-A-G-o  Spells  Opportunity  ....  200 
XiV    Ella  Flagg  Young 212 

APPENDIX 

I     Ella  Flagg  Young's  Writings  and  Addresses  227 
II     Courses  in  the  Chicago  Public  Schools  in 

1861  and  in  1916 228 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Ella   Flagg  Young Frontispiece 

Ella  Flagg  Young  When  She  Began  Teaching  .  .  30 
Ella  Flagg  Young  When  Principal  of  Practice 

School 30 

The   Old  Brown  School 42 

Skinner  Public  School 70 

Chicago  Normal  College 124 

The  Carter  H.  Harrison  Technical  High  School  .  156 
Carpenter  Apprentices   in   the    Lane   Technical 

High   School       184 

The  William  W.  Carter  School 202 

Ella   Flagg  Young 214 


MvB,  f  0«tt5*a  Matta 

Those  who  live  on  the  mountain  have  a 
longer  day  than  those  who  live  in  the  valley. 
Sometimes  all  we  need  to  brighten  our  day 
is  to  climb  a  little  higher. 


ELLA  FLAGG  YOUNG 


CHAPTER  I 

A  HALF-CENTURY  OF  CHANGE 

^T^HE  life  story  of  Ella  Flagg  Young  requires  Its 
-■-  background  of  events  and  forces  in  which  she  has 
lived  and  wrought.  The  half-century  since  the  Civil 
War  in  America  is  fraught  with  social,  economic,  intel- 
lectual, and  educational  transformations.  Contempo- 
rary with  such  changes,  Mrs.  Young  has  labored  in  the 
public  schools  of  Chicago.  More  than  is  usually  given 
to  one  person,  she  has  actively  influenced  the  course  of 
these  changes  in  the  Middle  West.  Since  an  account  of 
her  life  that  neglected  the  educational  and  social  history 
of  the  time  would  be  unintelligible,  a  brief  survey  of 
conditions  which  have  obtained  in  American  cities  and 
in  Chicago  in  particular  must  precede  the  attempt  to 
trace  her  life  or  to  estimate  her  achievements  as  a 
teacher  and  educational  leader. 

Nothing  is  more  significant  in  all  this  period  than 
the  growth  of  cities.  Chicago  has  sprung  from  com- 
paratively a  village  to  a  metropolis  covering  almost  an 
entire  county  and  occupying  second  position  in  size 
among  American  cities.  From  east  and  west,  north 
and  south,  populations  have  poured  into  the  close  con- 
fines of  the  city.  Older  lands  across  the  sea  have  so 
emptied  their  people  into  tenements  that  some  of 
the  centers  of  foreign  populations  in  our  cities  are 

I 


Ella  Flagg  Young 


greater  than  the  capitals  of  the  fatherland.  A  babel 
of  tongues  meets  us  wherever  we  turn,  and  a  city  school 
may  contain  more  than  two  score  nationalities  and 
races. 

It  is  difficult  to  realize  the  far-reaching  significance 
of  a  transformation  of  peoples  from  rural  to  urban 
conditions,  especially  when  this  takes  place  within  the 
lifetime  of  workers  in  the  fields  of  public  service.  Of 
this  growth  of  Chicago  no  one  has  been  a  keener  stu- 
dent than  Mrs.  Young.  It  has  fascinated  her.  One 
question  has  been  in  her  mind  for  many  years:  "How 
can  the  school  fuse  all  these  diverse  elements  so  as  to 
produce  the  unity  essential  to  a  democracy?"  Greater 
efforts  seem  to  have  been  made  toward  coining  alluring 
phrases  than  toward  sober  thinking  of  how  to  bring 
about  a  union  into  a  harmonious  whole  of  this  mass  of 
people  dwelling  in  the  closest  physical  proximity,  but 
separated  by  gulfs  of  racial  traditions,  standards,  and 
prejudices,  institutional  forms  and  practices,  and  per- 
sonal interests.  Against  the  actual  difficulties  of  bring- 
ing about  an  amalgamation,  few  leaders  have  been  able 
to  fight  and  still  retain  their  faith  in  the  ultimate  tri- 
umph of  popular  control  of  institutions.  To  call  the 
public  school  a  "melting  pot,"  for  instance,  as  Mrs. 
Young  unweariedly  reiterates,  is  to  miss  the  essence  of 
the  matter  in  reducing  these  elements  to  a  democracy. 
That  end  can  only  be  attained  by  spreading  intelligence 
and  a  sense  of  responsibility  for  the  control  of  the 
social  whole. 

How  few  men  and  women  have  realized  their  oppor- 
tunities of  aiding  the  growth  of  a  social  solidarity  in 
cities  is  shown  by  the  readiness  with  which  they  have 


A  Half-Century  of  Change 


been  drawn  into  narrower  fields  of  personal  gain  and 
individual  aggrandizement.  A  character,  therefore, 
like  that  of  Mrs.  Young  stands  out  conspicuously 
against  this  background  of  individualism  and  self- 
seeking. 

Connected  intimately  with  this  growth  of  cities  has 
been  the  revolution  in  the  status  of  women.  Machin- 
ery has  transformed  home  life  and  its  surroundings  and 
taken  home  industries  of  a  couple  of  generations  ago 
to  factories,  thus  depriving  woman  of  her  share  in  the 
world's  work.  Contrary  to  the  accepted  belief  that 
woman  has  followed  these  industries  out  into  the  world, 
Mrs.  Young  pointed  out  in  an  address  before  the 
National  Education  Association  in  19 15  that — 

The  work  has  been  taken  from  her,  but  she  is  not  doing  it  in  the 
world  outside  the  home.  We  teach  girls  sewing,  we  teach  them 
cooking.  Do  they  go  out  into  the  world  and  manage  the  great 
restaurants,  the  kitchens  of  the  great  hotels?  Certainly  not. 
Men  cook  in  the  large  establishments.  And  so  with  sewing. 
Girls  are  taught  to  sew.  But  if  you  or  I  want  a  tailor-made 
dress,  we  look  around  and  find  a  man  to  make  it.  Even  in  the 
exercise  of  the  two  occupations  which  industrial  education 
assigns  to  woman  as  hers  by  unquestionable  right,  she  is  not 
permitted  to  follow  her  work  out  into  the  world.  There  are 
some  lines  of  designing  and  millinery  to  which  she  is  admitted, 
but  after  all,  in  the  great  industrial  world  woman  seems  to  have 
nothing  to  do,  excepting  to  wrap  bundles  and  address  them, 
to  make  boxes,  and  to  do  small  things  like  that. 

But  occupations  are  now  open  to  woman  not  known  a 
half-century  ago.  When  Mrs.  Young  began  her  work, 
teaching  was  the  only  profession  accessible  to  woman, 
and  even  that  was  new  to  her.  Freedom  of  women  for 
self-support  in  industry  and  in  professions  has  been 
developed  in  this  generation. 


Ella  Flagg  Young 


From  scattering  agitations  by  "Blue  Stockings"  in 
1862  for  the  rights  of  women  to  full-fledged  voters  at 
the  close  of  a  half-century  marks  a  progress  of  events 
hardly  surpassed  in  any  other  period  in  the  history  of 
America.  Legal  restrictions  following  social  and  con- 
ventional restrictions  have  been  removed  and  woman 
has  been  given  the  position  of  a  self-directing  person 
in  the  state.  A  life  cast  within  this  period  of  history 
has  been  compelled  to  readjust  itself  to  an  ever-shift- 
ing social  valuation  of  the  place  and  importance  of 
women,  and  such  has  been  the  history  of  the  life  of 
Mrs.  Young. 

Not  only  has  the  entire  fabric  of  economic  and  social 
life  undergone  a  revolution  during  this  period,  but  the 
status  of  children  has  likewise  been  transformed.  In 
changing  from  rural  to  urban  homes,  child  life  met  the 
reverse  fate  of  that  of  woman.  In  the  country  the 
child  was  free  to  come  and  go  and  to  do  his  " chores" 
of  farm  life,  but  in  the  city  he  has  lost  the  wholesome 
duties  and  outdoor  activity  and  has  been  bound  by  hard 
conditions  of  city  life.  Servitude  in  the  South,  while 
more  spectacular  as  a  principle  to  fight  against,  was  no 
more  a  crime  upon  the  heart  of  a  nation  than  the  rush 
of  industrialism  of  the  city  to  subjugate  childhood  to 
spindle  and  machine. 

During  the  last  half-century  the  doctrine  of  "  rights 
of  children"  has  been  written  in  this  country.  In  the 
fight  to  free  children  from  early  labor  and  to  give  them 
free  opportunities  for  education,  one  legal  act  after 
another  was  necessary.  And  the  transformation  in  the 
legal  rights  of  children  has  been  wrought  mainly 
through  a  sympathy  for  childhood  and  an  understand- 


A  Half-Century  of  Change 


ing  of  its  needs  that  did  not  exist  before.  The  first 
swing  of  the  pendulum  away  from  the  rod  as  an  educa- 
tional method  carried  to  a  freedom  amounting  to 
license.  In  the  meantime,  however,  an  insight  into  the 
needs  of  childhood  brought  play,  constructive  work, 
and  motor  outlets  as  food  on  which  children  are  to 
grow  to  strength  of  manhood  and  womanhood.  We 
no  longer  permit  "the  lash  on  the  tender  bodies  of 
growing  children,"  nor  do  we  turn  them  out  to  their 
own  devices  to  run  wild  at  pleasure.  Our  playground, 
community  garden,  and  school  shop  and  gymnasium 
provide  for  the  demands  of  growing  boys  and  girls. 

No  pen  can  picture  this  growth  in  democracy,  in 
humanity,  and  in  intelligence  of  the  sentiment  for  chil- 
dren that  has  sprung  into  existence  during  a  brief  half- 
century.  Parents  doubtless  loved  their  children  as 
much  then  as  now  and  were  often  as  intelligent  in  their 
treatment.  But  they  did  not  see  children  as  social 
assets  and  did  not  treat  them  from  the  point  of  view 
of  this  social  relationship.  In  proportion  as  the  home 
has  been  compelled  to  surrender  to  the  factory  its 
place  in  the  industry  of  the  world,  its  power  over  the 
control  and  education  of  children  has  been  surrendered 
to  the  school  and  other  agencies  of  the  state.  With  this 
surrender' of  children  has  come  the  appreciation  of  a 
broader  civic  view  of  the  individual.  He  belongs  to 
society,  to  the  state,  to  humanity,  and  only  indirectly 
to  the  narrow  bounds  of  his  own  individual  demands. 
Emphasis  upon  bodily  health  and  efficiency,  upon  order, 
upon  morality  and  intelligence,  has  changed  from  indi- 
vidual health  and  morality  and  intelligence  to  social 
efficiency  and  service.     "All  children  must  be  in  the 


Ella  Flagg  Young 


public  schools,  the  schools  provided  by  society  for  its 
own  necessities,"  says  Mrs.  Young.  During  her  half- 
century  of  teaching  she  learned  this  lesson  from  changes 
wrought  by  the  life  of  the  city. 

In  the  light  of  the  history  of  the  status  of  children  in 
cities  during  the  past  generation  It  is  clear  that  city  life 
falls  most  heavily  upon  the  shoulders  of  the  young. 
[The  highly  technical  principles  of  business  and  industry 
on  the  one  hand,  and  mechanical  processes  forced  upon 
operatives  by  modern  machinery  on  the  other,  crush  the 
child  as  between  an  upper  and  nether  millstone.  Com- 
pulsory school  regulations  have  served  mainly  to  post- 
pone the  entrance  of  the  individual  into  this  chaos  of 
occupations  and  Interests.  Instead  of  merely  raising 
the  age  of  turning  children  loose  to  become  a  prey  of 
modern  Industrialism,  the  demand  is  growing  for 
direct  and  comprehensive  training  In  the  processes,  the 
demands,  and  the  possibilities  of  life. 

But  a  democracy  of  education  and  culture  that  meets 
the  demands  of  such  modern  conditions  is  a  recent 
growth.  Fifty  years  ago  it  was  a  vision  of  the  far- 
sighted,  written  Into  constitutions  and  declarations,  but 
unborn  in  its  applications  to  the  needs  of  all  classes  and 
types  of  children.  Unheralded,  academic  and  scholas- 
tic ideals  of  education  have  been  gradually  giving  place 
to  Ideals  of  caring  for  and  training  all  classes  in  all 
lines  of  human  endeavor.  Such  a  change,  commensurate 
with  the  upheavals  in  social  and  industrial  life,  is  of 
slow  growth.  The  theory  Is  spreading  and  becoming 
fact  that  the  school  shall  become  shop,  laboratory, 
miniature  state,  agricultural  experiment  station,  office, 
manufacturing  plant,  Industrial  center,  social  organism, 


A  Half-Century  of  Change 


center  of  domestic  activity,  in  fact,  all  things  that  men 
and  women  find  it  necessary  to  study  and  become 
expert  in  handling. 

Schools  can  no  longer  be  the  silent  halls  of  dark  and 
mysterious  book  lore  for  the  few,  as  they  were  a  gener- 
ation ago,  but  are  to  become  living,  striving  social 
groups  where  the  young  learn  the  parts  they  are  best 
fitted  to  play.  Avenues  are  opening  to  all  classes  and 
all  degrees  of  capacities  and  interests.  Recognition 
that  the  "Little  Red  School  House"  failed  to  fulfill 
the  mission  proclaimed  for  it  is  generally,  if  vaguely, 
accepted.  When  children  worked  alongside  their  par- 
ents in  home  or  field  the  three  R's  may  have  had  an 
excuse  for  being  considered  the  "fundamentals"  in 
education,  but  even  then,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  such 
methods  ruined  the  soils  of  farms  from  one  end  of  the 
country  to  another,  produced  poor  farm  stock  and 
Inadequate  methods,  and  that  boys  and  girls  rushed 
away  to  cities  to  take  up  unskilled  or  clerical  and  pro- 
fessional positions,  bare  academic  instruction  evidently 
failed  to  meet  the  needs  of  society. 

With  the  Idea  that  all  classes  of  children  should  be 
put  to  school  has  come  the  responsibility  of  providing 
facilities  and  opportunities  for  crippled,  blind,  tuber- 
cular, anemic,  epileptic  children,  as  well  as  for  children 
with  healthy  bodies  and  minds.  A  comprehensive  his- 
tory of  modern  education  will  show  the  dawn  of  this 
appreciation  of  the  right  of  each  to  the  training  that 
best  fits  him  to  live  his  life  In  society  and  the  consequent 
necessity  for  broadening  the  work  of  the  school  to  meet 
such  a  condition. 

Changes  In  social  and  economic  life,  in  the  place  of 


8  Ella  Flagg  Young 

women  in  society,  in  the  treatment  of  children,  and  in 
the  educational  institutions  of  this  period  are  paralleled 
by  a  transformation  of  the  status  of  teachers  in  the 
public  schools  and  of  the  ideal  of  what  teachers  should 
be.  Trained  teachers,  regarded  now  as  essential  fix- 
tures in  the  school,  have  not  always  been  thought  nec- 
essary. At  the  beginning  of  the  period  training  was 
regarded  as  necessary  for  teachers  by  only  the  very  few 
who  saw  the  failures  resulting  from  ignorant  and 
careless  teaching. 

Through  the  tireless  efforts  of  this  minority  of  great 
leaders  the  city  organized  a  normal  school  so  as  to  pre- 
pare young  women  to  teach.  When,  at  a  later  time, 
this  school  was  closed  by  political  influences,  the  ideal 
for  which  it  stood  was  not  lost.  After  the  closing  of 
this  school,  teachers  were,  for  a  number  of  years, 
selected  from  high-school  graduates  who,  of  course, 
had  not  been  trained  in  teaching.  Though  it  was  evi- 
dent that  this  practice  was  inadequate,  several  years 
intervened  before  another  attempt  to  train  teachers 
was  made  by  the  city.  In  the  history  of  this  movement, 
therefore,  there  has  been  no  uniform  practice.  The 
result  has  been  that  at  some  times  more  trained  teachers 
were  available  than  could  be  used  in  the  schools,  while 
at  others  the  schools  were  clamoring  even  for  substi- 
tutes. The  practice  of  drawing  teachers  from  outside 
communities  through  examinations  has  been  a  common 
one,  but  that,  too,  has  never  given  an  adequate  supply. 
The  normal  school  of  recent  years  has  been  crowded 
with  young  people  training  for  service  in  the  schools, 
and  the  professional  standard  has  been  continually 
advancing. 


A  Half-Century  of  Change 


Specialization  of  work  in  teaching  has  been  going  on 
increasingly  and  will  doubtless  continue.  Very  recently 
a  plan  of  selecting  men  and  women  from  the  trades  to 
teach  special  industrial  processes  has  been  practiced. 
Encouragement  of  ambitious  teachers  by  offering  in- 
ducements for  further  study  and  preparation  is  also 
found  in  Chicago.  Adequate  preparation  and  advance- 
ment of  teachers  in  the  professional  spirit  have  been 
questions  of  great  concern  to  leaders  in  education.  For 
a  half-century  Mrs.  Young  puzzled  over  this  problem. 
Her  special  interest  always  lay  in  securing  the  best 
teaching  for  the  children  of  the  city,  and  this  she  real- 
ized could  only  be  had  where  life  and  energy,  backed 
up  by  training,  found  expression  In  the  teacher. 

Far  from  being  unorganized  individuals  as  they  were 
fifty  years  ago,  teachers  have  come  to  represent  a  highly 
organized  community.  They  have  come  to  feel  that 
they  have  interests  in  common.  With  this  feeling  has 
come  a  sense  of  responsibility  to  society  not  felt  a  few 
years  ago.  Furthermore,  they  are  now  demanding 
the  standing  in  society  which  belongs  to  them  in  their 
important  work.  Mrs.  Young  has  been  so  active  in 
both  the  professional  training  of  teachers  and  the  fos- 
tering of  community  spirit  among  them  that  she  has 
involved  herself  in  many  fights  at  great  sacrifices  to 
herself.  Among  the  forces  controlling  the  public 
schools,  none  is  more  important  than  organized  teach- 
ers. Such  organization  has  made  impossible  the  thrusts 
aimed  at  individual  teachers  in  times  past.  At  the  same 
time,  teachers'  interests  have  come  to  be  quite  clearly 
identified  by  the  public  with  the  interests  of  the  schools, 
and  attacks  on  them  must  be  by  way  of  subterfuge. 


lo  Ella  Flagg  Young 

Through  organization  and  through  cooperation  and 
contribution  to  common  causes,  the  teacher  has  become 
a  force  in  determining  public  policy  both  inside  and 
outside  the  schools.  It  is  this  change,  unrealized  by 
many  in  tKe  city,  that  has  precipitated  the  conflict  be- 
tween school  management  and  teachers  during  the  past 
few  years.  Such  friction  will  doubtless  continue  until 
people  generally  estimate  justly,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
genuine  allegiance  of  teachers  to  the  interests  of  chil- 
dren, and  on  the  other,  the  sham  professions  of  politi- 
cians and  representatives  of  private  interests  seeking 
to  control  the  schools  through  representation  on  politi- 
cally constituted  school  boards. 

All  these  changes  in  institutions  and  practices  have 
been  wrought  through  much  opposition.  Government 
by  the  people  has  not  always  furnished  most  effective 
results.  It  was  fondly  hoped  by  the  founders  of  the 
public  schools  that  the  people  should  receive  in  them 
the  rudiments  of  training  necessary  for  all  practical 
purposes.  With  the  growth  of  cities  and  complex  mod- 
ern demands  the  problems  of  such  training  have  grown 
far  beyond  the  conceptions  of  the  founders.  Every 
change  in  school  work  and  school  organization  has 
been  so  bitterly  fought  that  effectiveness  of  teaching 
has  been  very  seriously  retarded  and  even  menaced. 
Educational  history  for  the  past  half-hundred  years, 
therefore,  has  been  a  continuous  fight  for  a  broadening 
of  the  school,  a  liberalizing  of  its  methods,  and  an 
emancipation  of  its  teachers. 

Art,  science,  and  nature  study  have  literally  pushed 
their  way  into  the  schools.  The  graded  system,  opposed 
strenuously  as  an  innovation,  was,  when  once  adopted, 


A  Half-Century  of  Change  1 1 

fought  in  turn  because  of  its  Iron  grip  on  school  organi- 
zation. It  has  already  been  made  clear  that  profes- 
sional training  of  teachers  and  organization  of  teachers 
have  met  antagonism.  In  the  same  way  the  movement 
for  vocational  education  has  encountered  this  fire  of 
opposition.  "Cultural"  and  "practical,"  as  applied 
to  education,  have  been  words  to  conjure  with  for  many 
a  year,  and  the  fight  still  goes  on  with  parties  lined  up 
on  two  sides  demanding  concessions  of  the  schools.  All 
sorts  of  forces  are  found  combined  to  fight  progress  or 
change  In  any  direction,  sometimes  within  and  some- 
times without  the  school. 

In  Illinois,  during  the  past  few  years,  this  wrangle 
has  been  going  merrily  on.  Vocational  schools,  modeled 
on  those  of  Germany,  run  as  separate  institutions,  are 
urged  upon  the  people.  Opposed  to  this  plan  stands 
the  work  of  the  schools  as  they  exist,  with  a  demand  for 
the  broadening  of  their  facilities  to  meet  industrial 
needs.  One  of  these  plans  is  called  "dual,"  undemo- 
cratic, and  un-American,  while  the  other  is  proclaimed 
a  "unit"  system,  and  democratic  because  it  keeps  all 
the  children  in  one  set  of  schools.  In  reference  to  this 
scheme,  Mrs.  Young  said  in  one  of  her  reports: 

The  difference  between  the  prevocational  classes  and  that 
proposed  by  the  manufacturers  in  a  bill  offered  in  the  state  leg- 
islature in  191 3,  lies  not  in  the  degree  of  skill  acquired  but  in 
the  appeal  to  spirit.  When  the  fourteen  to  sixteen-year-old 
children  of  the  working  classes  are  cut  off  from  everything  in 
education  except  that  which  bears  directly  on  shop  work,  the 
life,  the  character  of  the  American  workman  will  lose  the  stimu- 
lus that  comes  through  the  humanities.  All  our  classes  —  pro- 
vocational,  apprentice,  and  vocational — are  breathing  the  breath 
of  life  in  schools  where  skill  and  science  are  well  taught,  not, 


12  Ella  Flagg  Young 

however,  for  personal  or  trade  ends  only,  but  in  an  atmosphere 
in  which  an  industrial  career  is  dignified  as  an  element  in  the 
social  movement  of  the  American  people. 

A  summary  of  this  antagonism  to  progress  will 
reveal  that  its  forces  have  been  of  two  sorts :  tradition- 
alism on  the  one  hand,  and  special  or  political  interests 
on  the  other.  Traditionalism  in  one  form  or  another 
has  acted  as  a  drag  on  the  wheels  of  progress.  Both 
within  and  without  the  schools  this  force  has  thwarted 
efforts  to  improve  educational  practice  and  discredited 
suggestions  as  "theoretical."  The  most  fatal  form  of 
traditionalism  has  been  a  narrow  academic  interpre- 
tation of  education.  Advances  in  work,  for  example, 
to  improve  English  teaching,  to  introduce  nature  study, 
art,  song-singing,  and  whatever  has  given  life  to  chil- 
dren, have  met  traditional  teaching  as  an  almost  insur- 
mountable obstacle.  Doubtless  eyeryone  can  recognize 
the  difficulty  of  bringing  a  great  body  of  teachers  and 
principals,  educated  under  a  past  regime  of  scholastic 
and  academic  discipline,  to  meet  the  demands  of  a 
changing  and  a  scientific  age. 

Inertia  and  reactlonism  of  society,  and  of  teachers 
in  particular,  are  formidable  foes  to  progress;  but 
active  special  interests,  represented  by  our  political  sys- 
tem, must  be  reckoned  as  more  formidable  foes.  The 
fight  that  has  been  waged  over  school  matters  in  Ameri- 
can education  for  fifty  years  has  in  no  small  measure 
come  from  the  demands  of  special  and  selfish  interests. 
Intrenched  in  our  political  system,  they  dominate  boards 
of  education.  Power  is  placed,  either  by  election  or 
appointment,  in  the  hands  of  a  body  of  '*  representa- 
tive" men  and  women,  and  with  this  body  rests  the 


A  Half -Century  of  Change  13 

welfare  of  the  schools.  One  of  the  interesting  facts 
in  the  psychology  of  the  ordinary  American  is  that  no 
public  problems  are  too  difficult  or  too  technical  for 
him  to  undertake.  Accordingly,  during  the  past,  one 
board  has  introduced  a  number  of  innovations  and  the 
next  has  swept  all  these  aside  with  the  contemptuous 
designation  of  "  fads."  Lack  of  training  in  educa- 
tional matters  on  the  part  of  the  board  is  surpassed 
only  by  too  great  expertness  in  the  field  of  city  politics. 
Though  school  boards  have  grown  smaller  in  size 
of  late  years  in  many  cities,  in  the  more  cosmopolitan 
centers  they  are  still  far  too  large  for  effectiveness,  and 
are  composed  of  representatives  of  various  nationalities 
powerful  in  the  city,  and  of  various  special  or  insti- 
tutional interests  —  business,  religious,  and  political. 
When  such  "influences"  bring  about  appointments,  it 
follows  that  these  will  serve  first  the  forces  which  put 
them  there,  and  secondarily,  the  schools.  It  is  known 
both  within  and  outside  the  teaching  body  that  no 
matter  how  needful  or  how  beneficial  some  proposed 
educational  policy  may  be  —  a  textbook  to  be  adopted, 
the  teaching  of  some  particular  subject,  the  purchase  of 
equipment  for  a  school,  the  selection  of  a  site  for  a 
school  building,  the  fashioning  of  a  school  budget,  or 
the  appointment  of  some  subordinate  administrative 
officer  —  it  must  run  the  gauntlet  of  special  interests 
irrespective  of  its  merits  for  the  schools.  A  board  so 
constituted  compels  a  superintendent  to  be  a  politician. 
He  must  know  when  to  push  matters  and  when  to  let 
them  drop ;  must  know  which  forces  are  to  be  appeased 
and  which  to  be  ignored;  must,  in  a  word,  be  able  to 
lead  the  issues  through  the  agency  of  men  without 


14  Ella  Flagg  Young 

special  Intelligence  In  respect  to  schools  but  at  the  same 
time  creatures  of  many  interests. 

In  the  light  of  the  tremendous  revolution  in  social 
and  economic  life  during  this  period,  any  weakening  of 
men  and  women  through  pressure  of  tradition  and 
politics  is  destructive  to  progress.  To  keep  education 
abreast  of  the  times,  even  under  the  best  conditions,  re- 
quires constructive  genius  of  a  high  order.  In  no  line 
of  work  has  it  taken  greater  strength  of  character, 
keener  intelligence,  more  adept  management,  and 
greater  sacrifice  of  self-interest  than  it  has  to  teach  and 
administer  the  public  schools  of  great  cities  in  this 
country.  The  same  amount  of  talent  and  investment  In 
training  In  any  other  line  of  business  would  doubtless 
have  made  many  men  and  women  more  noted  in  the 
community  and  given  them  greater  ease  than  that  found 
In  teaching.  That  Mrs.  Young  has  been  content  to 
work  for  the  children  of  the  city  and  devote  all  her 
power  to  that  one  problem  regardless  of  personal  gain, 
is  a  mark  of  a  spirit  of  unselfishness  unsurpassed.  The 
great  army  of  men  and  women  with  whom  she  has 
worked  have  for  the  most  part  sustained  the  same  en- 
during and  far-reaching  devotion  to  the  welfare  of  the 
young  of  Chicago  and  other  communities.  Their  work 
has  gradually  brought  the  dawn  of  a  new  day  for  boys 
and  girls  of  the  city.  In  the  half-century  of  Mrs. 
Young's  work  the  world  of  childhood  has  gained  an 
Importance  commensurate  with  its  value  to  the  state, 
and  the  life  given  to  this  work  Is  worthy  a  place  with 
the  statesmen  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER  II 

EARLY  LIFE  AND  EDUCATION 

^T^HAT  "life  prepares  her  actors  behind  the  scenes" 
-*■  is  peculiarly  true  of  the  early  life  of  Ella  Flagg 
Young.  Born  in  Buffalo,  New  York,  January  15,  1845, 
the  daughter  of  a  mechanic,  her  early  years  a  continual 
fight  for  life,  Ella  Flagg  gave  little  promise  of  becom- 
ing the  leading  woman  educator  of  her  time  in  America 
and  the  world.  She  was  the  youngest  of  three  children, 
of  whom  one  was  a  boy.  The  eldest  was  quickest  of 
wit  and  a  ready  observer  of  everything  In  her  environ- 
ment. The  boy  was  a  healthy,  sturdy  youth  with  a 
remarkable  aptitude  for  sketching  and  illustrating  with 
the  pencil.  Ella  was  a  delicate  child  and  grew  up  know- 
ing little  of  other  children.  Her  mother  said  that  her 
chief  aim  was  to  make  Ella  as  well  and  happy  as 
fresh  air  and  sunshine  would  help  to  make  a  delicate 
little  girl. 

The  home  in  which  she  grew  up  was  an  inconspicuous 
American  home  of  the  highest  type,  simple  and  whole- 
some, a  place  where  freedom  and  self-control  were 
practiced  and  taught.  From  the  beginning  she  was 
accustomed  to  the  religious,  social,  and  intellectual 
advantages  that  go  with  the  culture  and  the  refinement 
of  such  a  home.  Her  people  were  Presbyterians.  But 
tolerance  and  liberality  found  a  conspicuous  place  in 
this  home,  where  the  father  refused  to  accept  some  of 
the  rigid  dogmas  of  the  church,  such  as  that  of  "pre- 
destination."   In  later  years  Mrs.  Young  describes  her 

15 


1 6  Ella  Flagg  Young 

home  thus:  "My  mother  was  a  religious  woman,  but 
she  believed  that  religion  should  not  be  so  strict  as  to 
drive  young  or  old  from  the  home  in  order  to  find 
amusements."  For  this  reason,  card-playing,  dancing, 
theater-going,  and  reading  books  of  the  day  were  per- 
mitted and  encouraged  by  her  parents.  To  the  spirit 
of  tolerance  thus  bred  in  her,  Mrs.  Young  undoubtedly 
owes  much  of  her  freedom  from  cant  and  dogmatism. 

"Blood  will  tell"  is  a  fact  that  makes  lineage  the 
most  important  clue  to  the  character  of  men  and 
women.  Of  Mrs.  Young  this  is  conspicuously  so.  Her 
father  and  mother,  Theodore  and  Jane  Reed  Flagg, 
were  of  Scotch  descent,  though  both  bom  in  America. 
They  came  of  a  clean,  hard-headed  race,  thrifty  and 
industrious,  given  to  abstract  and  philosophic  thinking. 
Both  of  her  parents  possessed  these  qualities  in  re- 
markable degree,  and  both  were  highly  individual  in 
their  characters. 

That  her  mother  came  of  the  Highland  clan  of 
Cameron  is  the  one  bit  of  personal  pride  in  her  history 
of  which  Mrs.  Young  will  converse  freely.  The  mother 
is  described  as  a  handsome  woman,  with  a  merry  laugh, 
and  a  readiness  to  assist  a  friend  in  trouble  or  sickness. 
Her  skill  in  caring  for  the  sick  was  well  known  and  she 
was  often  called  upon  when  the  illness  was  not  sufficient 
to  demand  the  care  of  a  physician.  Occasionally  Mr. 
Flagg  remarked  that  it  would  be  well  for  other  mothers 
to  learn  to  care  for  their  children  when  ill,  and  so  not 
be  obliged  to  take  his  wife  from  her  own  duties  and 
increase  her  labors.  "  There  is  nothing  strange,"  says 
Mrs.  Young,  "  in  the  fact  that  I  have  taken  so  readily 
to  practical  affairs  and  have  had  ability  to  manage.  My 


Early  Life  and  Education  17 

mother  was  the  manager  of  our  household,  and  we 
always  looked  to  her  for  guidance.  She  attended  to 
household  finances  and  directed  practical  matters.  Her 
mind  was  practical  and  forceful  in  business  details,  and 
from  her  I  learned  to  face  situations  squarely." 

The  father  was  a  man  endowed  with  a  keen  and  sen- 
sitive mind  and  a  thoroughly  democratic  spirit.  An 
only  child,  left  an  orphan  in  infancy,  apprenticed  by  a 
cousin  to  the  sheet-metal  trades,  he  received  the  train- 
ing common  to  boys  of  his  time.  When  the  apprentice- 
ship had  been  completed  to  within  three  years,  the 
youth  went  to  his  foreman  and  asked  what  extra  work 
would  be  received  in  lieu  of  the  work  of  the  last  two 
years  of  an  apprenticeship.  After  a  week's  considera- 
tion, the  foreman  handed  him  a  list  of  the  things  addi- 
tional to  the  work  of  the  year  then  under  way.  He 
laughed  as  if  the  impossible  had  been  laid  down,  and 
walked  off.  Day  and  night,  out  of  working  hours,  the 
young  apprentice  labored  at  the  job  and  completed  it, 
thus  freeing  himself  two  years  before  he  otherwise 
would  —  a  full-fledged  mechanic.  As  a  man  he  was 
known  as  the  swiftest  workman  in  the  sheet  metals 
throughout  the  cities  on  the  Great  Lakes. 

Although  his  life  at  school  closed  at  the  age  of  ten 
years,  he  was  well  read  in  history,  current  affairs,  and 
science.  Illustrative  of  his  interest  in  reading  is  his 
advice,  in  later  years,  to  his  daughter,  on  the  occasion 
of  her  entrance  into  the  normal  school,  not  to  take  his- 
tory, for,  he  said,  she  could  get  this  knowledge  by  her 
own  reading — advice,  as  we  shall  see,  that  bore  fruit 
in  one  of  her  most  permanent  habits.  Some  of  the 
books  which  her  father  found  time  to  read  conflicted 


1 8  Ella  Flagg  Young 

with  the  beliefs  of  his  church,  and,  as  already  remarked, 
formed  one  of  the  early  recollections  of  Ella  of  relig- 
ious discussions  between  her  father  and  his  friends. 

His  knowledge  of  affairs  was  often  sought  by  men 
in  all  lines  of  business.  His  chief  strength  lay  in  mathe- 
matics, a  capacity  which  was  transmitted  to  his  daugh- 
ter. At  one  time  in  later  years  he  did  a  piece  of  work 
requiring  great  exactness  in  computation  and  in  exe- 
cution. After  it  was  completed  the  firm  responsible  for 
the  contract  became  uneasy  and  believed  that  for  its 
own  security  the  covering  should  be  opened  and  exist- 
ing conditions  determined.  Mr.  Flagg  told  them  it  was 
unnecessary  but  that  if  they  were  determined  to  exam- 
ine, he  wanted  them  to  make  note  that  they  would  find 
the  work  done  as  indicated  in  his  calculations  and  draw- 
ings, and  each  part  securely  supported  in  its  place.  His 
statement  was  found  to  be  correct. 

The  sensitiveness  of  his  nature  was  shown  by  the 
effect  of  an  unfortunate  business  venture.  Through  an 
unprincipled  partner  he  lost  the  business  he  had  spent 
years  in  building  up,  and  this  experience  crushed  all  de- 
sire to  enter  business  again  for  himself,  though  on  more 
than  one  occasion  he  was  urged  to  do  so  and  at  one 
time  was  offered  a  partnership  in  a  large  firm  of  which 
he  had  the  management  in  Buffalo. 

It  was  from  him  that  the  daughter  came  by  a  certain 
readiness  of  illustration.  The  evening  of  the  day  when 
she  began  the  study  of  geometry,  she  said  to  him,  "  I 
can't  see  it,  and  I  said  so  in  class  today.  The  teacher 
talked,  but  I  couldn't  see  anything  in  what  he  said.'* 
She  then  explained  her  difficulty,  which  lay  in  the  fact 
that  every  string,  or  thread,  or  even  a  chalk  line  on  the 


Early  Life  and  Education  19 

blackboard  had  breadth  and  thickness,  though  the  defi- 
nition of  a  line  stated  that  it  had  length  only.  Her 
father  asked,  "  Can  you  start  from  where  you  are  and 
think  in  a  bee-line  to  the  top  of  the  flagstaff  on  the 
courthouse  ?  "  She  then  caught  the  bearing  of  the  later 
definition  of  a  line  —  the  path  of  a  moving  point. 

Through  a  consideration  of  these  strains  in  the  in- 
heritance of  Mrs.  Young  we  are  enabled  to  understand 
some  of  the  dominating  traits  of  her  character.  The 
retiring,  almost  shy,  disposition  which  makes  publicity 
distasteful  to  her,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  forceful 
handling  of  whatever  problems  meet  her,  on  the  other, 
are  characteristics  most  noticeable  in  her  life.  Her 
Scottish  ancestry  runs  through  all  the  relations  of  her 
professional  and  private  life,  makes  her  reticent  about 
herself  and  her  personal  affairs,  gives  her  a  keen,  prac- 
tical mind  filled  with  a  sense  of  humor,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  appears  in  her  serious  and  relentless  pursuit  of  an 
idea  or  an  issue. 

As  a  child,  she  was  accustomed  to  sit  for  hours  watch- 
ing her  father  at  his  work  at  the  forge  and  to  ask 
questions  about  the  processes  he  followed.  "  In  this 
way,"  she  says,  "  I  got  an  early  training  in  handiwork 
and  industrial  processes.  I  had  manual  training  before 
such  things  were  thought  of,  especially  for  girls."  So 
well  did  she  learn  the  trade  of  her  father,  with  its  prac- 
tical bearings,  that  many  years  later,  when  she  was  dis- 
trict superintendent  in  Chicago,  she  was  offered  the 
management  of  a  large  manufacturing  plant  because, 
as  the  owners  said,  "  she  knew  more  about  its  affairs 
than  anyone  else."  The  fact  that  her  mother  and 
father  took  so  deep  an  interest  in  treating  her  in  an 


20  Ella  Flagg  Young 

open  and  frank  way,  and  in  giving  her  insight  into  what 
they  thought  and  did,  is  of  itself  evidence  that  her  par- 
ents were  unusual  people.  The  training  in  affairs  which 
they  gave  her  showed  itself  later  in  her  interests  and 
activities.  No  one  is  more  quick  to  see  the  value  of 
this  early  influence  than  Mrs.  Young  herself,  and  her 
loyalty  to  the  memory  of  her  parents  is  a  thing  sacred 
to  her. 

No  one  seems  to  have  thought  it  necessary  to  teach 
Ella  Flagg  the  use  of  books;  in  fact,  she  was  about 
eight  or  nine  years  of  age  before  she  learned  to  read, 
and  then  she  literally  taught  herself. 

At  the  breakfast  table  one  morning  there  was  much 
excitement  over  an  account  in  the  morning  paper  of  the 
burning  of  a  schoolhouse.  Ella  was  especially  im- 
pressed by  her  mother  saying,  in  a  horror-stricken  tone, 
"  Think  of  it,  little  children  of  Ella's  age  threw  them- 
selves out  of  the  upper-story  windows ! "  After  the 
family  had  left  the  table,  she  asked  her  mother  to 
read  it  to  her.  Then,  taking  the  paper  into  her  arms, 
she  went  weeping  into  a  room  by  herself  and  tried  to 
read.  She  remembered  the  exact  beginning,  and  fitted 
it  with  her  finger  to  the  words  in  the  newspaper.  She 
soon  became  aware  that  she  did  not  know  the  words 
after  the  first  few  lines,  and  she  went  to  the  kitchen 
and  asked  the  "girl"  to  read  it.  In  this  way  she  was 
able,  finally,  to  read  the  whole  acount,  which,  fortu- 
nately for  her,  was  not  long.  She  became  interested 
immediately  in  learning  to  read.  If  her  reading  was 
late  and  untaught,  her  penmanship  was  still  later,  for  she 
refused  to  learn  to  write  until  she  was  ten  years  of  age. 

No  further  notice  was  taken  of  this  acquisition  until 


Early  Life  and  Education  21 

one  day  when  there  was  a  quilting  bee  at  the  house, 
and  in  the  course  of  conversation  she  spoke  out,  utter- 
ing some  positive  ideas.  What  she  said  she  does  not 
know,  but  she  remembers  distinctly  the  looks  on  the 
faces  of  the  quilters,  and  her  mother's  putting  her  arm 
around  her,  saying,  "  I  don't  know  how  this  little  Cal- 
vinist  got  into  the  family,  but  we  are  all  glad  she  is 
here."  The  quilting  was  resumed,  and  Mrs.  Cameron, 
her  mother's  aunt  by  marriage,  called  the  little  girl  to 
sit  by  her.  Soon  the  aunt  spoke  out,  "  Jeannie,  do  you 
know  what  this  child  is  reading?  —  Baxter's  Call  to  the 
Unconverted."  The  ladies  started  to  laugh,  but  her 
mother's  tone  and  manner  were  so  calmly  dignified 
when  she  said,  '*  Ella,  put  on  your  sunbonnet  and  go 
to  your  garden,"  that  Ella  went  in  silence  from  the 
room.  The  next  day  her  mother  took  her  down  town 
and  the  little  girl  returned  with  Mother  Goose  in  her 
hand.  In  the  meantime,  Baxter  had  disappeared,  and 
because  of  a  sensitiveness  about  the  ladies  and  some- 
thing not  understood,  she  did  not  enquire  about  the 
book.  Years  later,  when  breaking  up  the  home  after 
her  mother's  death,  she  came  across  the  Call  to  the 
Unconverted  at  the  bottom  of  a  trunk  filled  with  maga- 
zines and  books. 

Most  of  her  early  reading,  however,  was  serious- 
minded  material,  such  as  she  found  in  the  family 
library,  and  hardly  fitted,  according  to  present-day 
standards,  to  the  mind  of  a  child.  Before  ten  she  had 
committed  to  memory  the  JVestmlnster  Catechism  and 
most  of  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  John,  the  Epistles  to 
the  Corinthians,  and  the  Psalms. 

On  account  of  illness,  Ella  was  not  sent  to  school 


22  Ella  Flagg  Young 

with  the  other  two  children  until  they  were  in  the  gram- 
mar department,  her  mother  adhering  to  the  plan  of 
developing  her  physical  strength.  Each  year  she  was 
given  a  piece  of  ground  and  was  obliged  to  cultivate  this 
flower  bed,  and  also  to  care  for  certain  garden  vege- 
tables. When  gardening  became  a  subject  of  instruc- 
tion in  the  schools,  after  she  had  taught  many  years, 
she  was  an  ardent  supporter  of  the  work,  but  more  than 
once  she  quietly  remarked  to  her  friends  that  personally 
and  practically  she  detested  gardening,  although  pro- 
fessionally and  theoretically  she  believed  that  every 
child  should  like  it,  should  love  plants  and  their 
ways. 

As  a  child,  after  learning  to  read,  gardening  was 
made  less  objectionable  by  means  of  a  plan  which  she 
and  her  brother  adopted.  He  would  bring  her  chair 
to  the  garden  bed,  and,  making  herself  comfortable, 
she  would  read  to  him  and  expound  the  text  while  he 
would  weed  and  hoe.  Many  were  the  times  when  her 
book  learning  was  brought  to  a  sudden  pause  by  a 
criticism  or  a  question  raised  by  the  boy  pulling  weeds 
or  hoeing.  She  has  said  that  these  remarks  and  ques- 
tions taught  her  early  to  be  sure  of  the  gist  of  what 
she  was  reading,  and  to  avoid  verbose  explanations 
when  she  really  did  not  know,  in  the  full  sense  of  know- 
ing, what  she  was  explaining.  Such  was  the  relation 
between  the  mother  and  the  children  that  this  garden 
study  plan  was  submitted  to  her  for  approval  and  not 
practiced  surreptitiously. 

As  soon  as  she  entered  school,  the  management  and 
the  recitations  interested  her  deeply.  She  did  not  find 
the  strangers  among  the  children  interesting.    In  short, 


Early  Life  and  Education  23 

a  child  life  spent  with  her  mother  had  resulted  in  the 
usual  condition — preference  for  the  society  of  grown 
people. 

That  quite  early  she  saw  the  desirability  of  stating 
an  answer  independent  of  illustration,  is  evident  from 
her  reply  when  asked  by  her  mother,  as  she  was  get- 
ting ready  for  school,  why  she  was  so  uneasy :  "  Today, 
as  you  know,  is  public  examination  day,  and  when  some- 
body asks  me,  '  Why  do  you  invert  the  divisor  in  divi- 
sion of  fractions?'  I  can't  reply."  Her  mother  asked, 
"What  can  you  do?"  "I  can  show  it  by  going  back 
to  one."  Her  father's  democracy  was  shown  when  he 
detected  a  developing  priggishness  in  her,  after  she 
was  made  a  monitor  and  given  a  desk  by  the  side  of  the 
principal.  One  day  at  dinner  he  said,  "  She  talks  like 
a  little  prig.  What  is  she  doing  in  school?"  The 
reply  that  she  sat  on  the  teacher's  platform  and  taught 
a  class  in  Colburn's  Mental  Arithmetic,  brought  in- 
structions that  she  was  to  have  a  desk  on  the  floor 
with  other  children,  though  she  might  continue  to  teach 
arithmetic. 

Upon  her  parents  making  their  home  In  Chicago 
just  after  her  thirteenth  birthday,  she  was  greatly  dis- 
appointed to  learn  that  she  would  not  be  eligible  to 
enter  the  examination  for  admission  to  the  high  school 
until  she  had  attended  a  Chicago  grammar  school  one 
year.  She  entered  the  highest  grade  in  the  Brown 
School,  but  found  it  very  wearisome  to  hear  the  class 
going  over  what  was  known  to  her,  and  naturally,  in 
a  few  months,  she  dropped  out.  Five  years  later,  after 
she  had  taught  eight  months  in  the  Foster  School,  she 
was  made  head  assistant  of  the  Brown  School. 


24  Ella  Flagg  Young 

In  i860  she  was  invited  by  some  young  woman  to 
go  with  her  to  the  teachers'  examination,  which  she 
passed  successfully  but  was  too  young  to  be  awarded 
a  certificate.  In  dismay  as  to  what  to  do  with  her,  the 
superintendent  asked  if  she  would  like  to  enter  the 
Normal  School,  and  she  was  entered. 

Schools  were  endeavoring  to  effect  an  organization 
that  would  make  them  alike  in  scholarship  and  disci- 
pline. The  Normal  School  was  looked  upon  as  the 
chief  instrumentality  for  forwarding  the  plans  for  sys- 
tematizing the  schools.  Miss  Flagg  saw  the  aim,  and 
fell  in  with  the  means  for  securing  it.  With  no  reflec- 
tion upon  the  principal  of  the  Normal  School,  she 
thought  in  later  years  that  it  was  most  unfortunate  for 
her  that  she  loyally  supported  the  school  and  its  me- 
chanical methods.  Posture  was  thought  to  be  a  funda- 
mental in  a  good  school  —  not  a  posture  that  was  suited 
to  develop  each  one's  body,  but  a  posture  in  which  each 
child  sat  so  exactly  like  the  others  that  they  all  seemed 
more  like  copies  of  a  model  than  living  individuals. 
Many  methods  were  like  the  mechanics  in  military 
drill  but  wholly  unsuited  to  the  play  of  thought. 
Written  examinations  were  the  tests  by  which  all  were 
measured. 

Miss  Flagg  discussed  her  work  and  her  lessons  fre- 
quently with  her  father.  He  was  seldom  entirely  satis- 
fied with  the  work  of  the  schools,  and  always  insisted 
on  her  finding  out  the  reasons  back  of  things.  One 
evening  she  was  looking  at  a  cut  of  an  hydraulic  press 
when  her  father  asked  her  about  it.  After  she  had 
finished,  she  knew  from  the  look  on  his  face  that  he  was 
annoyed.    She  left  the  room  and  returned  as  her  father 


Early  Life  and  Education  25 

was  saying  to  her  mother,  "  She  had  a  fairly  good  mind 
to  start  with,  but  If  she  continues  under  such  teaching 
she  won't  have  any  mind  after  a  while."  Greatly 
depressed,  she  returned  to  the  hydraulic  press  and, 
carefully  studying  It  step  by  step,  discovered  that  a  very 
important  piece  was  not  In  the  cut.  The  next  day  a 
written  examination  was  given  and  one  question  was 
on  the  advanced  lesson  —  the  hydraulic  press.  All 
papers  except  hers  were  marked  zero  on  the  press,  the 
important  piece  not  having  been  Inserted.  In  the  talk 
among  the  students  about  the  zero,  the  opinion  was 
general  that  they  should  be  expected  to  learn  what 
was  in  the  textbook,  not  to  find  mistakes  therein. 

Through  such  thoughtful  and  sympathetic  guidance 
and  such  careful  reading  and  thinking,  she  grew  Into 
habits  of  reflection  and  scientific  accuracy  and  appreci- 
ation for  the  finer  qualities  of  human  life.  Luckily  her 
mental  energy  was  not  frittered  away  by  being  ex- 
pended on  an  endless  list  of  namby-pamby  child-books. 
Her  mind  and  body  grew,  free  from  the  external  dis- 
tractions which  are  so  common  In  our  own  day,  and  her 
habits  of  study  and  self-control  grew  at  the  same  pace. 

In  the  professional  study  of  the  Normal  School, 
Wayland's  Mental  Philosophy  was  used  simply  to 
develop  the  "  Mental  Faculties,"  and  the  theory  of 
'*  Formal  Discipline."  In  commenting  on  this  work, 
she  says : 

I  accepted  the  theory  of  the  faculties,  but  I  remember  dis- 
tinctly telling  my  mother  that  I  thought  if  the  whole  object  in 
learning  a  subject  was  simply  to  get  discipline  out  of  it,  that  the 
subject  was  not  worth  much.  It  would  lietter  be  omitted.  She 
remarked  that  she  hoped  I  would  have  an  opportunity  to  put 
my  ideas  into  operation  some  day. 


26  Ella  Flagg  Young 

Her  mother,  who  had  noted  the  impression  that 
methods  and  system  were  making,  felt  greatly  dis- 
turbed, but  not  in  the  same  way  that  the  father  was  irri- 
tated. The  course  was  two  years  in  length.  In  the 
vacation  before  the  beginning  of  the  second  year,  the 
mother  had  a  talk  with  the  prospective  teacher,  telling 
her  that  it  was  probably  best  that  she  leave  school, 
abandoning  the  idea  of  becoming  a  teacher;  that  being 
the  youngest  child,  she  did  not  know  young  children, 
and  having  always  dealt  severely  with  herself  for  hav- 
ing done  wrong  or  blundered,  she  would  deal  with 
other  children  as  severely,  which  would  be  a  mistake. 
The  daughter  thought  over  the  suggestions  and  then 
planned  to  visit  lower  primary  rooms  once  a  week  to 
determine  whether  they  would  not  interest  her.  None 
of  her  classmates  felt  willing  to  enter  on  the  plan  of 
visitation  of  schools,  so  she  went  alone.  The  first  two 
visits  were  made  on  hot  afternoons  in  small  recitation 
rooms  in  which  everybody  seemed  dull  and  sleepy.  The 
prospect  was  not  encouraging.  The  third  week  she 
went  to  a  school  a  mile  distant.  Walking  rapidly, 
almost  running  at  times,  she  knocked  at  the  door  of  the 
schoolroom  of  jMiss  Rounds.  Upon  explaining  that 
she  was  in  the  senior  class  of  the  Normal  but  didn't 
know  anything  about  young  children,  she  was  made 
welcome  and  the  children  were  given  the  information 
which  had  been  given  the  teacher.  They  smiled  a  wel- 
come and  she  took  a  seat  on  the  platform.  In  speaking 
of  that  first-reader  room,  she  says: 

In  the  course  of  an  hour,  I  was  conscious  that  here  was  a 
relation  between  teacher  and  children,  an  atmosphere  envelop- 
ing all,  that  I  had  never  known  in  a  school.    The  next  week 


Early  Life  and  Education  I'j 

found  me  again  in  that  wonderful  schoolroom.  Soon  after  I 
entered,  the  third  week,  Miss  Rounds  asked  if  I  would  like  to 
teach  a  class.  From  that  time  a  part  of  every  visit  was  spent  in 
teaching. 

Later  the  mother  told  the  daughter  that  her  objec- 
tion to  her  becoming  a  teacher  was  gone ;  that  the  influ- 
ence of  association  with  real  children  was  evident. 
Two  weeks  from  the  day  when  Miss  Flagg  began 
teaching,  the  mother  died,  but  In  that  expressed  doubt 
and  that  observed  interest  she  had  awakened  the  sense 
of  responsibility  acting  through  a  personal  interest  and 
a  consciousness  of  what  that  Interest  may  achieve, 
which  remained  active  through  more  than  a  half-cen- 
tury of  life  as  a  teacher. 

One  by  one  the  family  ties  of  her  early  life  were 
severed  by  death.  Charles  Theodore  Flagg,  the 
brother,  was  In  many  of  the  great  battles  of  the  Civil 
War  but  received  no  wounds.  He  was  killed  when 
traveling  on  a  railroad  train  In  1868  In  an  accident 
which  brought  death  to  him  only.  In  1868  she  married 
William  Young,  who  had  been  a  friend  of  the  family 
for  ten  years.  Her  work  as  a  teacher  was  not  aban- 
doned, because  of  the  uncertainty  of  Mr.  Young's 
health,  which  was  precarious  even  at  the  time  of  their 
marriage.  Later  he  left  Chicago  on  this  account  for 
the  West,  where  he  died.  Shortly  aftervvards,  her 
father  and  sister  succumbed  to  pneumonia,  and  so  the 
family  relationships  were  all  closed  by  death  long 
before  her  work  in  the  schools  was  ended. 

It  is  worthy  of  comment,  In  concluding  this  brief 
sketch  of  Ella  Flagg's  early  life,  to  note  the  Insignifi- 
cance of  the  school  In  her  education  as  compared  with 


28  Ella  Flagg  Young 

the  influences  of  her  home.  Home  occupied  a  larger 
place  in  the  education  of  children  than  it  does  at  the 
present  time.  She  was  not  thrown  at  the  tender  age 
of  four  into  a  crowd  of  children  in  the  kindergarten 
to  be  "  socialized,"  but  was  left  to  grow  up  in  seclusion, 
learning  life's  lessons  directly  from  parents  and  the 
few  other  children  of  the  home.  She  worked  out  alone 
the  questions  of  nature  and  of  self-control.  The  home 
in  which  she  grew  was  fitted  to  build  a  strong,  self- 
directing  life.  In  all  the  years  of  service  in  schools,  she 
recognized  the  dangers  to  children  of  the  excitements 
of  modern  city  life  which  she  saw  in  the  light  of  her 
own  more  primitive,  quiet,  sympathetic  world  of  home. 


CHAPTER  III 

TEACHING   SCHOOL    FIFTY   YEARS   AGO 

ASKED  what  element  of  strength  lies  at  the  foun- 
dation of  her  success  in  life,  Mrs.  Young  replies, 
"systematic  work."  All  her  life  has  been  molded  by 
continuous  application  to  definite  lines  of  work,  not  in 
a  haphazard  fashion,  but  in  a  carefully  prepared  plan 
rigidly  adhered  to  from  the  beginning.  Few  people 
have  been  able  to  stick  to  a  program  more  consistently 
than  she  has.  One  of  the  plans  formulated  by  her  the 
first  year  she  taught  was  for  the  disposition  of  her  time 
outside  of  school  hours.  According  to  this  plan,  three 
evenings  each  week  were  given  to  study;  three  were 
devoted  to  social  interests  and  to  meeting  people  in 
her  community;  and  Sunday  evening  was  reserved  for 
church. 

Her  first  task  on  her  study  evenings  was  to  review 
to  herself  in  an  oral  way  the  work  of  the  previous  eve- 
ning, and  then  to  go  on  with  the  advanced  work.  Out 
of  this  systematic  use  of  her  time  she  has  acquired 
the  ability  to  concentrate  herself  on  the  task  at  hand 
and  accomplish  a  great  deal  in  a  short  time.  She  has 
adhered  to  this  plan  of  study  all  her  life,  so  that  her 
mind  is  always  posted  on  the  latest  books  and  ideas  in 
her  work.  Undoubtedly  the  plan  of  meeting  and  asso- 
ciating with  people  has  kept  her  in  touch  with  others 
and  prevented  her  from  becoming  a  book-worm  and 
recluse.  In  her  selection  of  material  for  study,  she 
followed  the  advice  of  her  father  and  began  with  his- 

29 


30  Ella  Flagg  Young 

tory.  Commencing  with  Hume,  she  studied  ancient 
and  modern  European  and  American  history.  In  this 
work  she  acquired  a  large  library  which  later  she  used 
to  furnish  books  for  her  pupils  in  school. 

When  Mrs.  Young  began  her  teaching  in  1862,  the 
world  of  education  and  society  was  propitious  for  an 
ambitious  young  woman.  Like  all  periods  of  modern 
history,  this  was  an  age  when  great  forces  were  operat- 
ing—  social,  economic,  religious,  intellectual.  It  was 
an  age  of  revolution  in  industrial  interests,  an  age  of 
application  of  science  and  machinery  to  industry  and 
transportation.  It  saw  the  beginnings  of  the  impetus 
to  great  cities  and  city  interests.  Professional  life  was 
rapidly  broadening  into  wider  fields  than  the  classical 
ones  of  ministry  and  law.  This  opening  up  of  new 
fields  of  professional  life  gave  women  greater  oppor- 
tunities in  the  work  of  teaching.  New  interpreta- 
tions of  education,  new  forms  of  schools,  normal 
schools,  colleges  of  agriculture  and  mechanic  arts, 
were  making  their  appearance  at  this  time.  In  two 
particulars  this  age  was  unique:  it  was  the  period  of 
the  Civil  War  in  America;  it  was  an  age  of  scientific 
discovery. 

The  effects  of  the  Civil  War  as  an  epoch-making  era 
in  every  phase  of  American  life  are  too  well  known  to 
need  elaboration,  but  in  none  of  these  phases  were  the 
effects  greater  than  in  education.  It  was  an  age  to 
try  the  strength  of  men  and  women.  Thousands  of 
America's  young  manhood  were  giving  their  lives  in  the 
cause  of  an  idea.  Chicago,  like  every  other  section  of 
the  country,  was  feeling  the  stress  and  strain  of  this 
great  strife.     Not  only  was  brother  divided  against 


Teaching  School  Fifty   Years  Ago  31 

brother,  but  end  to  free  government  was  fully  assured 
in  the  minds  of  many  men.  The  struggle  for  the  per- 
manency of  democratic  institutions  made  this  age  criti- 
cal in  the  life  of  the  race.  Bitterness,  sorrow,  selfish- 
ness, and  even  cowardice  walked  the  streets  beside 
patriotism,  enthusiasm,  and  self-sacrifice.  Financial 
depression,  though  keenly  felt,  was  not  the  hardest  of 
the  social  problems.  The  effects  of  this  war  on  the 
minds  of  men  are  hard  to  determine.  In  camp  and  on 
battlefield,  men  from  all  walks  of  life  were  brought 
together  on  a  common  level  to  defeat  or  to  be  defeated. 
In  spite  of  the  evils  spread  by  the  war,  association  of 
men  from  all  quarters  of  the  country  tended  to  break 
up  provincialism  and  to  form  a  cosmopolitanism  not 
existing  before.  The  power  of  local  church  and  politi- 
cal ties  was  broken  and  in  their  stead  came  laxity  of 
dogma  and  freedom  from  the  domination  of  domestic 
discipline. 

The  war  made  calls  upon  the  schools  in  two  direc- 
tions, both  of  them  extremely  important  in  their  bearing 
upon  the  life  of  Ella  Flagg  Young.  In  the  first  place, 
the  young  men  who  left  the  schools  of  Illinois  and 
other  Northern  states  for  the  battlefields  had  to  be 
replaced  by  young  women.  Reluctant  school  directors 
were  compelled  to  employ  women  as  teachers  in  order 
that  the  schools  might  continue.  •  In  the  second  place, 
the  war  produced  new  demands  upon  the  schools  for 
training  in  patriotism,  in  history,  and  in  civics.  A  new 
conception  of  the  school  as  a  preparation  for  citizen- 
ship and  as  a  public  bulwark  against  internal  strife  and 
external  aggressions  was  born.  American  orators 
waxed  eloquent  over  free  schools  for  a  free  nation. 


32  Ella  Flagg  Young 

Hereafter,  "mental  discipline"  shares  the  place  of 
honor  with  training  for  citizenship. 
<  It  is  thus  evident  that  Mrs.  Young  began  her  teach- 
ing at  the  outset  of  the  modern  "  feminist  move- 
ment," just  at  the  time  when  the  war  made  it  necessary 
for  women  to  take  a  larger  share  in  the  professional 
life  of  the  community.  That  position  of  prominence 
in  the  woman  movement  she  has  held  throughout  her 
career,  always  taking  a  step  in  advance  with  every  open- 
ing for  women.  Her  work  as  a  leader  of  this  move- 
ment has  never  been  that  of  the  advocate,  but  rather 
that  of  the  demonstrator  of  the  capacity  of  woman  for 
places  of  responsibility  in  the  affairs  of  the  society. 

From  the  agitation  during  the  war  and  immediately 
succeeding  that  period  for  school-training  in  citizenship 
Mrs.  Young  received  an  inspiration  which  has  been  one 
of  her  strongest  motives  in  dealing  with  public  educa- 
tion. Her  faith  in  the  power  of  the  schools  to  mold 
men  and  women  for  the  duties  of  the  state  has  been  a 
dominant  factor  in  shaping  the  work  she  has  done  in 
this  city.  To  her  Chicago  has  been  a  great  opportunity 
for  practicing  the  ethics  of  citizenship.  It  was  the 
insight  that  came  to  her  during  the  very  first  years  of 
her  teaching  that  led  her  to  adopt  as  the  foundation 
of  her  educational  philosophy  the  doctrine  of  the 
responsibility  of  the  school  to  society.* 

•  That  Mrs.  Young  felt  the  value  of  education  for  citizenship  and 
studied  diligently  on  the  problem  is  evident  from  one  of  her  earliest 
addresses  before  the  National  Education  Association  which  met  in 
Chicago  during  the  summer  of  1887.  Her  subject  was  "How  to  teach 
parents  to  discriminate  between  good  and  bad  teaching."  She  says 
the  day  has  passed  when  even  a  minority  of  parents  can  be  induced 
to  visit  schools.    The  school  must  stand  on  its  ability  to  hold  children 


Teaching  School  Fifty   Years  Ago  33 

As  an  age  of  scientific  interest  and  discovery,  the 
period  when  Mrs.  Young  began  to  teach  was  unique, 
and  the  influence  on  her  entire  life  profound.  Darwin 
had  but  recently  published  his  treatise  on  the  Origin  of 
Species,  and  Spencer,  in  i860,  his  book  on  Education. 
The  world  was  ablaze  with  controversy  over  concep- 
tions long  since  considered  finally  settled.  A  British 
writer  quoted  by  E.  L.  Youmans *  In  1867  says: 

There  have  been,  in  consequence  of  revelations  by  scientific 
research  in  this  direction  and  that,  some  most  notable  enlarge- 
ments of  our  view  of  physical  nature  and  of  history  —  en- 
largements even  to  the  breaking  down  of  what  had  formerly 
been  a  wall  in  the  minds  of  most,  and  the  substitution  on  that 
side  of  a  sheer  vista  of  open  space. 

However  slow  the  profession  of  teaching  to  give 
more  than  lip  service  to  the  new  doctrines  of  science, 
still,  during  the  period  under  discussion,  minds  and 
hearts  were  quickened  through  the  efforts  of  the  great 
leaders  of  thought.  Scientific  interests  and  investiga- 
tions could  not  long  go  on  without  attempts  on  the  part 
of  those  in  the  schools  to  carry  over  to  educational 
activities  the  questions  raised  by  scientists.  For  the 
most  part  the  movement  of  science  became  effective  in 
education  through  Its  utilitarian  bearing  on  the  ques- 

to  Ideals  and  habits  of  honesty,  work,  clear  thinking,  and  this  can  be 
done  only  as  teachers  possess  these  habits.  "  Parents  who  have  seen 
the  influence  of  a  high-grade  instruction  will  need  no  suggestion  re- 
garding the  difference,  when  a  weak  teacher  or  a  sham  assumes 
charge  of  their  children.  .  .  .  Although  the  patrons  have  done 
but  little  visiting,  it  has  long  been  evident  that  they  not  only  appreci- 
ate, but  are  keenly  alive  to  the  merits  of  the  superior  teacher."  She 
insists  upon  teachers  making  themselves  felt  in  the  community  as 
forces  for  control,  a  view  that  showed  a  clear  recognition  of  the 
social  significance  of  the  school. 

•  The  Culture  Demanded  by  Modern  Life.  D.  Appleton  &  Co., 
New  York. 


34  Ella  Flagg  Young 

tions  of  preparing  the  young  for  society.  The  Morrill 
Act  of  1862,  establishing  colleges  of  agriculture  and 
mechanic  arts  in  various  states,  was  an  evidence  of  the 
influence  of  scientific  Interests  working  out  into  school 
life.  As  summarized  by  Youmans,  "  deeper  than  all 
questions  of  reconstruction,  suffrage,  and  finance  is  the 
question  what  kind  of  culture  shall  the  growing  mind 
of  the  nation  have?"  And  the  answer  was  given  in 
terms  of  the  new  realism  being  propagated  through  the 
teachings  of  science. 

To  summarize  the  movements  of  the  time  when  Mrs. 
Young  began  to  teach,  we  may  say:  Democracy  at  last 
was  demanding  that  the  schools  take  account  of  the 
resources  of  society,  the  needs  of  the  community  and 
individuals,  and  the  capacities  of  those  being  educated. 
In  this  new  movement  of  democracy  the  doom  of  aca- 
demic culture,  of  religious  and  of  aristocratic  training 
was  sounded,  and  the  schools  were  called  upon  to  pre- 
pare men  and  women  for  the  actual  life  of  the  times 
in  a  state  where  efliclency  and  initiative  and  moral 
strength  were  the  powers  demanded.  Discipline  and 
culture  had  concerned  themselves  previously  with  train- 
ing the  few  in  the  classics,  in  mathematics,  in  philosophy 
and  logic,  and  had  prepared. only  for  the  learned  pro- 
fessions. Henceforth  education  must  concern  itself 
with  the  activities  common  to  the  people.  Industry, 
labor,  agriculture,  and  all  interests  were  now  to  be 
considered  as  essential  factors  In  the  determination  of 
an  educational  scheme.  Practicality  and  utility  were 
the  tests  that  were  to  be  applied  relentlessly  to  the 
schools  from  this  period  forward,  no  matter  what  the 
grade  of  work. 


Teaching  School  Fifty   Years  Ago  35 

As  already  pointed  out,  Mrs.  Young  had  been 
brought  up  in  a  home  where  an  open-minded  attitude 
towards  scientific  and  philosophic  questions  was  encour- 
aged. That  she  readily  took,  hold  of  the  great  questions 
of  the  day  is  not  surprising  from  such  a  training  as  that 
given  her  by  her  father*  She  insists  that  she  was  nar- 
rowly academic  in  her  practice  and  theory  when  she  first 
entered  the  schoolroom.  But  her  mind  was  full  of  the 
ideas  of  the  time,  and  she  was  striving  to  understand 
the  problems  of  education  as  she  found  them  in  Chicago. 
That  she  understood  the  needs  of  new  work  and  new 
practices  is  clear  from  her  interest  in  the  course  of 
study  formulated  by  Superintendent  Wells  of  the  city 
schools  the  year  she  began  to  teach.  This  course  was 
based  on  the  Object-Lesson  plan,  the  form  which  ele- 
mentary science  took  in  the  schools  of  the  period. 
During  her  first  year  of  teaching  she  wrote  out  all 
the  knowledge  involved  in  this  Object-Lesson,  or  oral, 
course  throughout  the  ten  grades.  This  course  in  ele- 
mentary science  was  in  line  with  her  early  training  and 
her  interests  in  the  movements  of  the  day. 

Mrs.  Young  was  first  appointed  to  teach  in  a  primary 
grade  of  the  old  Foster  School.  After  six  weeks  in 
this  grade  she  accepted  —  against  the  advice  of  all  the 
teachers  in  the  school,  because  of  the  diflliculty  of  the 
class  —  an  upper  grade,  one  known  as  the  "cowboy" 
class.  It  derived  its  name  from  the  fact  that  most  of 
the  boys  in  the  class  spent  their  time  outside  of  school 
"herding"  the  cattle  belonging  to  the  families  of  the 
neighborhood  on  the  prairies  outside  of  the  town.  As 
might  be  supposed,  such  a  group  of  boys,  like  the 
present-day  "newsies,"  had  a   reputation  that  made 


36  Ella  Flagg  Young 

them  undesirable  in  the  schoolroom.  In  this  room, 
with  many  of  the  boys  older  and  much  larger  than  the 
young  teacher,  she  found  no  difficulty  in  meeting  all 
requirements  of  a  good  school.  Only  once  during  the 
year  she  spent  in  the  room  did  she  have  to  resort  to 
harsh  measures,  and  the  effects  of  her  treatment  seem 
to  have  been  appreciated  by  the  overgrown  boy  in  the 
case.  A  story  is  told  of  her  custom  of  staying  regu- 
larly until  dark  in  the  schoolroom  finishing  the  work 
of  the  day.  On  one  occasion  one  boy  who  had  caused 
her  most  trouble  as  a  disturber  in  the  room  remained 
after  the  others  had  gone,  to  remonstrate  with  his 
youthful  teacher  for  staying  so  late  and  going  out  on 
the  dark  streets  alone.  Evidently  her  work  with  the 
boys  and  girls  had  made  some  impression,  since  one  of 
them  wished  to  see  that  she  ran  no  risk  in  the  neighbor- 
hood after  dark. 

Like  most  beginners,  doubtless  Mrs.  Young  took  up 
her  work  in  the  school  imbued  with  the  "methods" 
which  she  had  been  taught  in  the  Normal  School. 
Doubtless,  also,  she  was  imbued  with  the  spirit  of 
success,  for,  as  already  pointed  out,  she  made  her  own 
practice  school  while  still  a  student  at  the  Normal. 
Unlike  most  beginners,  however,  she  had  few  school- 
room traditions  to  guide  or  hamper  her,  since  most  of 
her  education  had  been  gained  outside  of  the  schools. 
It  was  largely  this  lack  of  experience  with  the  tradi- 
tional school  practice  that  enabled  her  from  the  start 
to  succeed  in  dealing  with  boys  and  girls,  because  she 
never  had  any  of  the  formality  of  teaching  to  overcome 
in  meeting  children.  She  met  her  pupils  openly  and 
frankly  on  their  own  level,  without  any  of  the  conde- 


Teaching  School  Fifty  Years  Ago  37 

scending  or  stilted  habit  of  the  school-ma'am,  and  she 
was  able  to  hold  them  without  force. 

When  Mrs.  Young  began  her  teaching  the  "pro- 
fession" was  not  In  very  high  standing.  Normal 
schools  had  not  long  been  In  existence,  and  few  of  the 
teachers  had  made  any  special  preparation  for  the 
work.  Chicago  and  Illinois  were  like  the  rest  of  the 
country  in  this  respect.  A  picture  of  the  conditions  in 
Cook  County  is  given  In  a  letter  of  the  late  John  F. 
Eberhart,  school  commissioner  of  the  county  in  1859, 
who  says: 

There  was  little  interest  in  education  outside  of  Chicago. 
The  county  schools  were  without  system  and  were  very  ineffi- 
cient and  neglected.  There  had  been  no  school  supervision, 
because  the  pay  for  such  service  was  only  two  dollars  a  day. 
Certificates  had  been  given  indiscriminately  at  the  request  of 
the  directors,  and  many  were  teaching  without  certificates.  .  .  . 
There  were  then  fifty-five  teachers  in  the  city,  and  one  hundred 
and  ninety-eight  in  the  county  outside  of  the  city.  .  .  .  The 
situation  was  not  inviting  at  first.  Much  of  the  territory  about 
Chicago  was  occupied  by  "squatters"  and  renters,  mostly  of  for- 
eign birth,  who  had  but  little  interest  in  schools  except  to  get 
money  out  of  them.  In  one  district  adjoining  the  city  one 
director  was  paid  fifty  dollars  a  month  to  superintend  the  erec- 
tion of  a  two-room  school ;  his  son  got  five  dollars  a  month  as 
janitor,  and  his  daughter  fifty  dollars  a  month  as  teacher,  al- 
though she  had  no  certificate.  In  another  district  two  of  the 
directors  signed  the  teacher's  schedule  by  making  their  mark. 
...  In  another  district  there  was  a  complaint  that  the  teacher 
got  drunk.  I  visited  the  school  and  found  two  or  three  children 
plajang  outside  the  schoolhouse  and  no  one  inside.  I  inquired 
whether  school  was  in  vacation.  They  said  it  was  not,  but  that 
the  "  teacher  was  down  at  that  house,"  and  one  of  them  volun- 
teered to  go  for  him.  While  the  messenger  was  gone  I  plied 
the  other  children  with  questions  and  learned  that  the  teacher 
spent  most  of  his  time  with  friends  out  of  school  and  in  sa- 
loons,  and   that  attendance   was   irregular — though   his  last 


38  Ella  Flagg  Young 

schedule  showed  not  a  single  absence  for  the  whole  term.  They 
also  said  that  he  kept  a  bottle  locked  up  in  his  desk,  from  which 
he  frequently  took  a  drink.  His  salary  was  fifty  dollars  a 
month  and  he  and  his  friends  felt  much  aggrieved  when  his 
certificate  was  revoked.  (Quoted  from  Cook's  Educational 
History  of  Illinois,  p.  263.) 

Much  as  has  been  said  in  recent  years  about  women 
teachers,  because  of  their  unstable  tenure  of  the  posi- 
tion making  the  attainment  of  a  high  professional 
standing  for  teaching  impossible,  the  fact  remains  that 
until  they  entered  the  schools  as  teachers  there  was  no 
pretense  of  a  profession  of  teaching.  The  men  who 
took  up  such  work  were  either  incompetent  or  were 
ambitious  young  fellows  striving  to  get  on  to  some 
other  occupation  and  found  teaching  the  easiest  means 
of  securing  a  little  ready  money.  Any  man  could  teach, 
no  matter  what  his  preparation  or  standing.  Mrs. 
Young  entered  the  work  just  at  the  turning  of  the  way, 
and,  as  already  pointed  out,  when  women  were  becom- 
ing the  teachers.  She  was  deeply  interested  in  the 
professional  side  of  the  work  and  set  about  learning 
how  to  do  the  thing  in  the  most  effective  way.  In  this 
respect  she  was  not  unlike  a  great  many  other  young 
women  of  her  time,  though  she  proved  unusually 
successful  In  learning  to  do  the  work  effectively. 

She  found  the  schools  of  the  city  striving  to  keep 
room  enough  for  the  rapidly  growing  population.  In 
i860  Superintendent  W.  H.  Wells  reported  that  — 

It  is  well  known  that  the  greatest  evil  from  which  the  schools 
have  heretofore  suffered  has  been  the  crowded  state  of  the  pri- 
mary rooms,  and  the  large  number  of  pupils  necessarily  given 
to  a  single  teacher.  In  this  respect  there  has  been  some  improve- 
ment.   One  year  ago  the  average  number  of  pupils  belonging  to 


Teaching  School  Fifty   Years  Ago  39 

each  teacher  in  the  primary  schools  of  the  city  was  eighty-one. 
The  average  number  belonging  to  each  primary  teacher  at  the 
present  time  is  seventy-seven.  The  number  is  still  too  large  by 
at  least  seventeen^  and  fully  seventeen-sixtieths  of  the  efficiency 
and  value  of  the  schools  are  sacrificed  on  this  account. 

The  next  year  the  president  of  the  board  of  education 
recommended  legislation  to  raise  the  school  age  from 
five  to  six  years  in  order  to  relieve  the  overcrowded 
conditions  of  the  schools.  In  1862  the  superintendent 
reports  a  large  number  of  "branches,"  one  school  hav- 
ing four  rooms  rented,  all  of  which  were  reported  unfit 
for  school  children.  It  was  estimated  that  year  that 
three  thousand  children  between  five  and  fifteen  were 
running  the  streets,  and  no  relief  was  In  sight  for  the 
following  years. 

Not  only  was  the  profession  of  teaching  In  a  low 
state  at  the  time  Mrs.  Young  entered  the  work,  and 
not  only  were  the  lower  schools  overcrowded,  but  with 
few  exceptions  schools  were  not  equipped  with  appli- 
ances now  considered  essential  for  teaching.  Black- 
boards were  just  coming  Into  general  use.  Most  rooms 
in  the  city  schools  were  heated  with  stoves,  and  teachers 
were  required  by  rule  of  the  board  of  education  to  look 
after  the  ventilation  by  opening  windows.  Into  some 
schools,  of  which  the  Foster  was  one,  steam  heating 
had  been  introduced.  Mr.  Wells  remarks  that  "It 
must  be  confessed  that  In  the  art  of  heating  and  venti- 
lating schoolhouses  we  have  not  made  much  progress." 
State  Superintendent  Bateman  said  regarding  this  sub- 
ject in  i860  that — 

The  reckless  indiflFerence  and  cruel  neglect  of  this  essential  fea- 
ture of  a  good  schoolhouse  in  many  parts  of  Illinois  surpasses 


40  Ella  Flagg  Young 

belief.  .  ,  .  The  disregard  of  the  laws  of  health  manifested  in 
the  style  of  seats  or  benches  often  provided  for  young  children 
can  hardly  be  too  earnestly  deprecated.  Children  at  that  tender 
age,  when  curvature  of  spine  or  distortion  of  limb  may  be  pro- 
duced by  slight  and  almost  imperceptible  causes,  are  required  to 
sit  for  hours  daily  in  seats  so  constructed  by  ordinary  house 
carpenters  as  not  only  to  be  unpleasant  and  inconvenient,  but 
absolutely  to  do  violence  to  every  bone  in  their  bodies.  And 
children  immured  in  these  spine-bending,  chest-compressing  fix- 
tures are  required  to  be  as  still  and  patient  and  sweet-tempered 
as  if  their  chairs  were  models  of  physiological  adaptation  and 
anatomical  skill.  And  when  they  grow  restless  and  irritable 
and  stifled  cries  escape  them,  the  sharp  reproof  often  reveals 
the  truth  that  the  cause  of  the  irrepressible  uneasiness  is  not 
understood  even  by  the  teacher. 

In  Chicago  matters  were  not  much  better,  though  the 
new  school  buildings  were  furnished  with  single  seats 
and  desks. 

The  course  of  study,  as  noted  above,  had  been  a 
matter  of  active  reorganization  under  the  leadership 
of  Superintendent  W.  H.  Wells.  In  reorganizing  the 
work  utilitarian  and  scientific  interests  were  kept  in  the 
foreground.     Mr.  Wells  said  in  1861  that — 

The  regular  course  of  school  studies.  In  most  cities  and  towns, 
is  already  sufficiently  extended,  and  yet  it  is  notorious  that  pupils 
leave  the  public  schools  lamentably  deficient  on  a  great  variety 
of  subjects  connected  with  a  sound,  practical  education. 

It  was  with  a  view  to  furnishing  sound,  "  practical " 
education  that  the  course  was  changed  to  give  emphasis 
upon  physiology,  mineralogy  and  geology,  natural  phi- 
losophy, and  chemistry  "  of  common  things."  To  thrust 
upon  the  schools  such  a  scheme  of  education  at  a  time 
when  academic  and  book  training  was  the  only  kind  to 


Teaching  School  Fifty   Years  Ago  41 

be  had  by  the  teachers,  was  a  sure  way  to  add  another 
load  of  facts  to  be  gained  from  books.  Such  was  the 
fate  of  the  "object  lessons,"  of  the  elementary-science 
course,  as  it  was  called.  It  turned  out  to  be  a  series  of 
lessons  for  language,  most  of  which  were  committed  to 
memory  by  the  children  from  the  books.  Nevertheless, 
the  efforts  to  change  the  course  so  as  to  make  it  more 
"practical"  and  more  in  accord  with  newly  awakened 
interests  in  science  were  valuable  and  were  fruitful  of 
stimulating  the  younger  and  brighter  minds  among  the 
teaching  force  to  growth.  -It  stimulated  Mrs.  Young 
to  know  in  detail  the  demands  of  this  new  line  of  edu- 
cation, and  from  her  work  in  connection  with  it  she 
soon  outgrew  the  purely  academic  training  which  she 
had  received  in  the  Normal  School.  In  her  criticism, 
in  later  years,  of  this  work  in  the  schools  Mrs.  Young 
has  called  it  a  "bottled  science"  course  because  of  the 
kind  of  material  used  to  illustrate  it. 

From  this  brief  summary  of  the  social  and  intellec- 
tual conditions  of  the  time,  of  the  poor  preparation  of 
teachers,  of  the  entrance  of  women  into  the  schools, 
of  overcrowding,  of  poor  equipment,  and  of  the  new 
course  of  study,  it  must  be  evident  that  Mrs.  Young 
began  to  teach  at  a  time  when  education  was  a  live 
element  in  the  affairs  of  the  city.  Indeed,  the  period 
marks  a  turning  point  in  the  history  of  American  public 
schools.  Whether  a  free  people  can  continue  without 
free  schools  was  considered  seriously  at  this  particular 
time.  In  her  later  activities  and  words  on  this  subject, 
it  is  evident  that  Mrs.  Young  learned  very  thoroughly 
during  these  first  years  her  lesson  of  the  public  and 
social    responsibility   of    the    schools.    Whatever   the 


42  Ella  Flagg  Young 

equipment,  and  whatever  the  requirements  of  the  course 
of  study,  one  thing  she  realized  should  be  accomplished 
by  her  school,  and  that  was  the  preparation  of  the 
young  for  participation  in  free  Institutions. 

After  one  year  in  the  grades  as  teacher,  Mrs.  Young 
w^as  made  head  assistant  in  the  Brown  School.  Although 
still  a  young  girl,  she  remained  here  for  two  years.  The 
position  enabled  her  to  become  acquainted  with  the  con- 
ditions and  needs  of  the  school  as  a  whole.  She  was 
untiring  in  her  study  of  the  management  of  the  school, 
of  the  course  of  study,  and  of  the  needs  of  children 
and  teachers.  One  of  the  most  apparent  needs,  as  she 
soon  found,  was  that  of  training  the  teachers  for  ele- 
mentary schools.  In  e\'^ery  grade  the  work  was  an 
exact  counterpart  of  the  intelligence  and  training  and 
sympathy  of  the  teacher.  Her  interest  in  this  subject 
led  her  to  prepare  herself  to  help  train  them  for  service 
In  the  schools.  At  the  end  of  two  years  as  head  assist- 
ant she  was  selected  as  the  first  principal  of  the  new 
"practice  school"  of  the  Normal.  In  order  to  pre- 
pare as  completely  as  possible  she  got  permission  from 
the  board  of  education  to  visit  the  Oswego  (New 
York)  Normal  School,  where  elementary  science  had 
been  worked  out  more  fully  than  elsewhere  In  the  form 
of  the  "  object  lessons.''  Because  of  restrictions  at 
the  school  she  failed  to  gain  her  desired  end,  and  came 
away  no  wiser  on  their  "  methods  "  than  she  went.  But 
her  failure  in  no  way  dampened  her  Intention  to  pre- 
pare for  the  work  of  supervising  the  practice  school, 
and  she  set  about  making  her  own  method  of  work. 
In  her  own  normal-school  days  she  had  succeeded  In 
making  a  practice  school  for  herself,  and  now  that  the 


Teaching  School  Fifty   Years  Ago  43 

opportunity  came  for  her  to  help  train  others  she  was 
equal  to  the  occasion.  In  this  respect  Mrs.  Young 
revealed  one  of  her  striking  qualities  by  her  "  fore- 
handedness,"  her  readiness  for  the  job  calling  her. 


CHAPTER  IV 

EARLY  TRAINING  OF  TEACHERS  IN  CHICAGO  AND 
MRS.  young's  part  IN  IT 

^T^HE  conception  that  teachers  are  made,  not  born, 
-*•  developed  in  this  country  only  a  short  while  before 
Mrs.  Young  began  to  teach.  Founded  in  1856  as  an 
adjunct  of  the  high  school,  the  normal  department  had 
been  preparing  "young  ladies"  to  teach  in  the  elemen- 
tary schools  of  the  city.  Not  all  of  the  teachers,  nor 
even  a  large  percentage  of  them,  had  come  from  this 
school.  Examinations  held  regularly  provided  most 
of  the  teachers  for  the  schools,  and  these  examinations 
were  such  that  a  person  with  the  ordinary  grammar- 
school  education,  with  or  without  experience  in  teach- 
ing, might  get  into  the  occupation  of  teaching.  The 
normal  department  of  the  high  school  was  not  re- 
garded highly  at  the  time  and  Its  students  were  not 
always  of  the  better  grade.  But  the  importance  of  the 
normal  department  was  not  entirely  in  the  number  or 
the  character  of  the  students  it  turned  into  the  schools 
as  teachers.  The  fact  that  it  kept  alive  the  idea  of  pro- 
fessional training  as  an  ideal  for  the  teacher  when  such 
an  idea  was  vague  and  meaningless  to  most  people,  was 
sufficient  excuse  for  its  continued  existence.  Profes- 
sional training  was  becoming  a  recognized  part  of  the 
equipment  of  teaching,  as  well  as  of  other  branches  of 
learning. 

It  was  well  that  such  training  was  emphasized  in  a 
tangible  way  at  this  particular  time,  because  the  func- 

44 


Early   Training  of  Teachers  45 

tion  of  the  teacher  was  undergoing  a  rapid  modification. 
Vaguely  held  as  was  the  new  meaning  then  being  given 
to  education  as  a  preparation  for  a  democratic  society, 
it  was  developing  new  lines  along  which  teachers  must 
direct  their  energies.  Ability  to  control  children 
through  fear  of  the  rod  was  giving  place  to  control 
through  understanding  the  nature  and  needs  of  the 
person  being  taught.  Superintendent  J.  L.  Pickard 
says  in  his  report  to  the  Board  of  Education  in  1870: 

From  time  immemorial  the  teacher's  acquaintance  with  arith- 
metic, grammar,  and  geography  has  served  as  a  passport  to  the 
teacher's  desk.  It  is  but  very  recently  that  a  knowledge  of  the 
structure  of  the  human  body,  and  of  its  hygienic  laws,  has  had 
any  weight  in  determining  a  teacher's  qualifications. 

No  regard  had  been  paid  to  the  mental  and  n^oral 
being  of  the  children  except  so  far  as  these  were  con- 
cerned in  pursuing  academic  studies.    He  continues : 

The  next  step  in  our  progress  must  be  the  requirement  of 
knowledge  of  the  laws  that  govern  man  in  his  physical,  mental, 
and  moral  being.  But  in  our  path  lie  the  obstructions  of  long- 
established  usage,  and  the  lack  of  a  really  professional  spirit. 
.  .  .  The  impression  has  prevailed  that  the  things  taught  were 
of  more  value  than  the  person  taught.  For  the  prevalence  of 
this  impression  teachers  are  themselves  largely  responsible.  Rela- 
tively too  much  stress  has  been  laid  upon  the  ability  of  the  child 
to  stand  the  test  of  an  examination  in  reading,  writing,  and 
arithmetic  —  too  little  upon  its  ability  to  meet  the  hard  work  of 
life  with  resolute  will,  self-reliant  and  patient.  .  .  .  Our  most 
successful  teachers  are  those  who  are  keeping  themselves  abreast 
of  the  times,  who  are  constantly  studying  into  the  mental  needs 
of  their  pupils,  and  who  spend  more  hours  upon  the  "  How  to 
teach"  than  upon  the  "What  to  teach,"  or  rather,  who,  know- 
ing well  what  to  teach,  are  busying  themselves  constantly  with 
the  discovery  of  the  real  powers  of  the  child  and  of  better 
methods  of  application  of  means  to  the  development  of  the  mind 
of  the  child. 


46  Ella  Flagg  Young 

One  other  agency  besides  the  normal  school  was 
instrumental  in  developing  and  keeping  alive  the  newer 
notion  of  teaching  and  the  necessity  for  preparation 
for  the  work,  namely,  the  Saturday  meetings  and  the 
Teachers'  Institutes.  Much  more  was  made  of  this 
form  of  instruction  then  than  in  later  days;  in  fact,  this 
was  the  only  professional  training  many  of  the  teachers 
ever  got.  Through  lectures  on  subjects  and  the  teach- 
ing of  them,  ideas  were  disseminated  of  a  more  modern 
and  humane  nature.  The  better  grade  of  teacher  was 
always  faithful  in  attendance  upon  these  meetings.* 

In  order  to  foster  the  training  of  teachers  in  the 
normal  department  it  was  found  necessary  to  establish 
a  school  of  practice.  In  1865,  at  the  age  of  twenty, 
Mrs.  Young  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  newly 
formed  school.  Superintendent  Pickard  reports  at 
length  on  the  reasons  for  establishing  this  school  and 
for  selecting  Mrs.  Young  as  its  first  head: 

Intellectual  qualifications  alone  are  not  sufficient  to  Insure 
success  in  the  teacher,  nor  will  mere  theorizing,  however  thor- 
oughly comprehended,  add  much  to  the  worth  of  the  young 
teacher.  Some  actual  practice  Is  needed  during  the  preparatory 
Normal  course.  Our  best  Normal  schools  have  their  schools 
of  practice  called  "  Model  Schools."  These  considerations  led 
mc  to  examine  Into  the  feasibility  of  adding  this  important 
feature  to  our  Normal  school.  That  the  school  of  practice 
might  be  of  the  greatest  value,  It  seemed  to  me  that  It  should 
be  as  near  like  the  actual  school  as  possible.  So  far  as  my  obser- 
vation had  extended,  the  Model  schools  attached  to  the  Normal 
schools  of  the  country  were  not  the  same  In  character  as  the 
actual  school  for  which  teachers  were  being  trained.  The 
pupils  were  generally  the  children  of  parents  In  easy  clrcum- 

♦Among  the  instructors  in  these  institutes  in  1868  is  the  name  of 
Miss  Flagg,  who  discussed  the  subjects  "The  Human  Body — ^Parts  and 
Uses,"  and  "  Common  Objects." 


Early   Training  of  Teachers  47 

stances  who  could  afford  to  pay  the  tuition  fee  charged,  and 
very  generally  children  who  were  well  governed  at  home;  so 
that  the  discipline  and  instruction  would  be  very  uniform  and 
comparatively  easy;  while  there  was  not  variety  enough  to 
develop  to  the  fullest  extent  the  tact  of  the  teacher,  not  enough 
of  the  worst  element  to  lead  the  teacher  to  cultivate  the  graces 
of  patience. 

Fortunately  for  us,  the  immediate  proximity  of  one  of  our 
grammar  schools  to  the  high  school  opened  the  way  for  just  such 
a  school  of  practice  as  would  meet  our  actual  wants.  The  sug- 
gestion made  was  most  heartily  accepted  by  the  board  of  edu- 
cation, and  two  rooms  in  the  branch  of  the  Scammon  School 
were  set  apart  for  this  school  of  practice,  without  in  the  least 
disconnecting  them  from  the  rest  of  the  school.  Pupils  found 
in  these  rooms  are  just  what  they  would  have  been  had  no  such 
change  been  made,  their  course  of  study  the  same,  their  promo- 
tions from  class  to  class  and  from  grade  to  grade  the  same. 
These  two  rooms  have  been  placed  under  the  charge  of  the 
training  teacher,  Miss  N.  Ella  Flagg,*  while  the  immediate  work 
of  instruction  and  of  discipline  is  devolved  upon  the  senior 
Normal  class,  each  member  having  charge  for  two  weeks  during 
the  year.  This  school  of  practice  has  also  been  a  school  of 
observation,  for  the  oral  instruction  and  nearly  all  the  general 
exercises  have  been  conducted  by  Miss  Flagg  in  the  presence  of 
the  whole  senior  class.  The  fears  expressed  at  first  that  this 
frequent  change  of  teachers  might  affect  injuriously  discipline 
and  the  progress  of  the  school  have  been  proved  entirely  ground- 
less. There  have  been  one  or  two  instances  only  of  marked  dis- 
obedience, perhaps  no  more  than  would  have  occurred  under  any 
other  circumstances,  while  the  examinations  for  promotion  have 
showed  progress  unexcelled  by  any  school  of  the  same  grade 
under  the  constant  care  of  one  teacher.  The  experiment,  for 
such  it  was  felt  to  be,  has  proved  more  than  successful,  and 
the  wisdom  of  the  board  in  the  selection  of  a  teacher  has  been 
fully  established.  The  hearty  cooperation  of  the  principal  of 
the  Scammon  School  merits  commendation.  Thus  far  the  school 
of  practice  has  touched  but  two  grades  —  the  sixth  and  seventh 
grades.    So  far  as  discipline  is  concerned,  which  is  the  principal 


*  The  N  which  here  precedes  Ella  was  a  part  of  Mrs.  Young's 
name  but  never  used  by  her. 


48  Ella  Flagg  Young 

■  ■—      ■      ■  ..——...  1.1  Mil.  .1  I  , 

thing  to  be  considered,  little  more  is  needed,  but  in  the  work  of 
instruction  its  advantage  may  be  gradually  and  profitably  ex- 
tended. The  work  of  oral  instruction  in  these  two  grades  may 
be  in  part  committed  to  some  Normal  student  who  shows  special 
fitness  for  this  work,  and  some  time  of  the  training  teacher  be 
given  to  the  oral  instruction  of  one  or  two  other  grades,  so  that 
the  school  of  observation  may  be  extended  into  the  work  of 
other  grades.  The  greater  value  of  this  new  feature  is  yet  to  be 
felt,  as  the  teachers  who  have  for  the  past  year  been  combining 
practice  with  theory  shall  enter  the  schools  for  which  the  trial 
to  which  they  have  been  subjected  has  proved  them  best  fitted. 

From  year  to  year  the  reports  are  uniformly  favor- 
able on  the  work  of  this  department  of  the  Normal 
School  under  its  first  principal.  The  president  of  the 
board  the  next  year  says  that  the  school  under  Miss 
N.  Ella  Flagg  has  — 

Proved  a  very  satisfactory  success,  and  I  do  not  say  too  much 
when  I  say  that  this  is  not  excelled  by  any  similar  school  in  our 
country.  The  practical  knowledge,  the  tact  in  teaching,  and 
discipline  here  gained  by  those  preparing  to  teach  is  of  more 
real  value  to  the  young  teacher  than  any  gained  in  the  same  or 
much  more  time  in  any  other  way.  Many  and  perhaps  most  of 
our  teachers  would  be  benefited  and  improved  by  a  term  in  this 
school. 

The  president  of  the  next  year  says  that — 

the  Training  Department,  inaugurated  some  two  years  ago, 
has  been  steadily  growing  in  excellence  and  value  since  that 
time,  and  is  now  an  indispensable  part  of  the  Normal  School. 
{Report,  1867,  p.  12.) 

He  further  states  that — 

The  benefits  flowing  from  the  school  of  practice  have  been 
plainly  observable  during  the  year.  The  graduating  class  of 
1866  have,  with  the  exception  of  one  who  was  physically  unable 
to  teach,  found  employment,  and  success  has  uniformly  at- 
tended them.  Their  drill  in  the  school  of  practice  has  had  a 
marked  influence  upon  their  teaching. 


Early   Training  of  Teachers  49 

In  1868  Superintendent  PIckard  declares  that — 

The  success  of  the  school  of  practice  is  established  beyond  a 
question.  Our  schools  owe  more  to  this  agency  than  to  any 
other — I  am  tempted  to  say  than  to  all  others.  The  labor 
imposed  upon  the  two  teachers  of  the  Normal  School  and  school 
of  practice  is  more  than  is  just.  An  assistant  teacher  should 
be  provided  Mr.  Delano,  that  he  may  find  a  little  more  time  to 
give  to  the  school  of  practice;  and  that  Miss  Flagg  may  be 
relieved  from  the  necessity  of  hearing  recitations  in  the  Normal 
school,  in  addition  to  her  duties  in  the  school  of  practice,  of 
themselves  arduous  enough.  I  feel  that  I  should  urge  the 
appointment  of  an  additional  teacher,  because  our  necessities 
enjoin  upon  us  the  enlargement  of  the  school  in  numbers.  The 
classes  might  well  be  larger.  ...  I  would  be  glad  to  see  the 
time  when  no  teacher,  unless  of  some  experience  elsewhere,  shall 
be  able  to  find  a  place  until  graduated  from  the  school  of 
practice  at  least.      {Report,  p.  184.) 

Again  in  1869  the  school  of  practice  is  highly  com- 
mended by  the  superintendent: 

This  school  has  maintained  its  standing,  and  has  given  addi- 
tional proof  of  its  great  value  to  our  work.  Not  one  who  has 
passed  successfully  through  this  school  has  failed  in  the  regular 
work  of  the  schools  when  assigned  to  duty  after  graduation.  It 
is  not  to  be  expected  that  all  should  exhibit  equal  power  as  the 
result  of  training,  for  the  school  does  not  create,  it  simply 
develops  talent.  It  afFords  means  for  the  cultivation  of  what- 
ever power  the  pupil-teacher  possesses.  It  gives  direction  to 
power  that  might  otherwise  be  misapplied,  or  fail  entirely  of 
application.  All  who  graduate  from  the  Normal  School  know 
what  they  can  do,  and  set  immediately  about  it  with  energy  and 
with  increasing  success  as  age  gives  experience.  {Report,  p.  196.) 

In  this  statement  of  the  superintendent  there  seems 
to  be  implied  the  complaint  of  persons  who  had  been 
found  lacking  in  ability  to  take  on  the  training  of  the 
school.  It  is  out  of  this  complaint  later  that  difficulty 
arose  for  the  principal  of  the  practice  school. 


50  Ella  Flagg  Young 

In  1870  the  normal  primary  building  was  erected 
and  the  Normal  School  transferred  to  it  from  the  high 
school.  The  special  committee  of  the  board  on  high 
school  reported  this  year  that — 

The  first  and  second  floors  (eight  rooms)  of  the  Normal  pri- 
mary building  are  used  for  the  school  of  practice.  The  members 
of  the  senior  class  of  the  Normal  department  teach  the  pupils 
attending  this  school  under  the  charge  of  Mrs.  Ella  Flagg 
Young,  principal  of  the  school  of  practice  (a  graduate  of  the 
Normal  department),  thus  saving  no  inconsiderable  expense  for 
teachers  who  would  otherwise  have  to  be  employed. 

The  same  year  the  superintendent  reports  that  "  the 
most  responsible  of  all  positions,  that  of  the  principal 
of  the  school  of  practice,  is  filled  by  a  normal 
graduate." 

In  the  same  report  the  superintendent  states  that  the 
standard  established  by  the  committee  on  examination 
of  teachers  had  been  gradually  raised: 

The  average  attainments  of  our  corps  of  teachers  is  higher 
than  formerly.  Our  normal  course  is  substantially  the  same 
as  it  has  been  for  years  past.  Is  it  not  well  to  consider  the  pro- 
priety of  enlarging  this  course  of  stujjy,  or  of  advancing  the 
requisites  for  admission  to  the  Normal  school  ?  Since  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  high-school  classes  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  our 
Normal  school  might  be  made  more  efficient  by  taking  the  pupils 
from  these  classes  instead  of  from  the  grammar  schools,  as  at 
present,  and  thus  give  a  more  thorough  course  in  mental  science, 
natural  history,  general  history,  and  in  the  history  of  educational 
systems,  than  we  can  at  present  furnish.  The  work  of  our 
Normal  graduates  is  good,  but  might  it  not  be  made  still  better 
by  a  little  higher  degree  of  culture,  especially  in  the  direction 
indicated  above?  A  diploma  of  graduation  should  be  a  pass- 
port to  any  place  that  may  be  vacant  in  our  schools.  But,  to 
this  end,  a  broader  and  deeper  culture  is  necessary.  In  our 
present  system  some  very  important  topics  are  touched  very 


Early   Training  of   Teachers  51 

lightly;  others,  not  at  all.  An  advanced  standard  of  admission, 
or  an  extended  course  of  study,  will  meet  the  requirement,  and 
advance  materially  the  interests  of  our  schools. 

Undoubtedly  this  demand  for  more  advanced  stand- 
ards and  extended  course  of  study  had  grown  out  of 
the  complaints  voiced  in  the  previous  year.  The  prin- 
cipal of  the  practice  school  had  found  it  impossible  to 
"create  talent"  and  had  been  unable  to  make  teachers 
out  of  the  children  placed  into  her  classes  after  only 
a  grammar-school  training.  She  herself  was  studying 
educational  problems,  and  realized  the  need  for  making 
a  higher  demand  of  the  girls  entering  upon  the  prepa- 
ration for  teachers'  courses.  Since  there  had  been  no 
separate  "committee"  for  the  Normal  School  or  the 
school  of  practice,  all  matters  of  scholarship  and  effi- 
ciency devolved  upon  the  two  teachers  in  the  school. 
In  undertaking  to  follow  out  the  recommendations  of 
the  superintendent  for  raising  the  standard  of  work  to 
meet  the  new  conditions  of  the  city,  there  was  sure 
to  come  friction  somewhere,  especially  in  a  school 
governed  by  the  board  of  education  as  constituted  in 
Chicago. 

On  February  7,  1871,  after  the  superintendent  had 
vainly  striven  with  her  to  retain  her  place,  Mrs.  Young 
asked  to  be  transferred  from  the  principalship  of  the 
school  of  practice  to  the  high-school  class  at  the  Haven 
School.  Characteristic  of  her  whole  career,  she  refused 
to  remain  in  a  position  which  hampered  her  and  gave 
her  no  freedom  for  growth.  The  demand  for  fully 
equipped  teachers  from  a  two-year  training  course 
given  to  a  lot  of  inexperienced  girls  just  from  grammar 
school   had   compelled   considerable   weeding   out   of 


52  Ella  Flagg  Young 

Incompetents,  and  in  doing  so,  to  use  Mrs.  Young's 
own  words,  this  "  often  hit  the  friends  of  the  poli- 
ticians." At  the  time  of  her  withdrawal  Mr.  Walsh 
of  the  board  of  education  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tion, which  was  adopted: 

Resolved,  That  the  committee  on  examination  of  teachers 
and  the  committee  on  the  Normal  primary  school  be,  and  they 
are  hereby  requested  to  investigate,  conjointly,  and  report  to 
this  board  at  its  next  regular  meeting,  what  changes,  if  any, 
are  necessary  to  be  made  in  the  management  of  the  school  of 
practice  to  insure  to  the  ladies  attending  said  school  necessary 
instruction,  and  a  fair  and  impartial  consideration  of  their  quali- 
fications to  teach  in  our  public  schools,  and  to  promote  among 
the  pupils  an  ambition  to  attain  a  higher  standing  in  deport- 
ment, and  greater  proficiency  in  scholarship  than  now  prevails. 

It  is  quite  evident  that  Mrs.  Young  had  tried  to  weed 
out  those  persons  whom  the  superintendent  said  lacked 
"  talent,"  and  in  doing  so  had  run  foul  of  the  constitu- 
ents of  some  of  the  board  members,  one  of  whom,  Mr. 
Richberg,  remarks  incidentally  that — 

This  question  [he  does  not  explain  what  the  question  is,  and  we 
have  no  other  evidence  in  the  Proceedings]  belonged  to  the  com- 
mittee on  examination  of  teachers.  There  was  no  authority 
lodged  with  either  principal  to  remove  unpromising  pupils. 
The  committee  not  having  attended  to  this  matter,  the  two 
principals  had  acted  on  their  own  responsibility. 

And  as  a  result  of  their  action,  Mrs.  Young  as  prin- 
cipal of  the  practice  school  had  been  the  one  to  suffer, 
while  the  principal  of  the  Normal  School  had  not  been 
mentioned  or  "  transferred." 

At  this  same  meeting  the  superintendent  suggested 
"  an  extension  of  the  Normal-School  course  for  half  a 


Early   Training  of  Teachers  53 

year,  In  order  to  obtain  a  little  more  culture  on  the  part 
of  the  ladies  who  graduate  there."  His  suggestion  was 
referred  to  the  committee  on  examination  of  teachers. 
At  the  next  meeting  of  the  board  of  education  the 
following  is  found : 

The  committee  appointed  at  the  last  meeting  to  investigate 
and  report  what  changes,  if  any,  were  necessary  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  school  of  practice,  and  also  to  report  upon  the  super- 
intendent's recommendation  for  an  extension  of  the  course  of 
study  in  the  Normal  school,  report  the  following: 

That,  after  the  close  of  the  present  school  year,  the  Normal 
be  made  an  independent  school,  and  a  committee  of  three  mem- 
bers be  then  appointed  as  a  committee  on  the  Normal  school; 
that  hereafter  a  higher  standard  of  scholarship  be  required  for 
admission  to  the  Normal  school,  and  two  examinations  for 
admission  to  the  same  be  held  each  year,  and  that  the  course 
of  study  therein  be  revised  and  enlarged;  that  the  Normal 
primary  school  be  discontinued  and  the  pupils  thereof  be  trans- 
ferred to  the  Scammon  school;  and  that  the  pupils  of  the 
Scammon  school  in  the  ninth  grade  be  placed  in  rooms  most 
convenient  to  the  Normal  to  form  the  school  of  practice;  that 
the  pupils  of  the  school  of  practice  be,  as  to  instruction  and 
discipline,  in  charge  of  the  Normal  teachers,  and  examinations 
for  promotions  be  made  by  the  principal  of  the  Scammon 
school;  and  that  in  selecting  special  teachers  for  the  school  of 
practice  the  following  order  be  observed  when  practicable:  ist, 
members  of  the  Normal  senior  class;  2d,  members  of  the  special 
class  who  are  graduates  of  the  high  school ;  3d,  members  of  the 
special  class  who  have  been  connected  with  our  public  schools; 
4th,  members  of  the  special  class  who  have  never  attended  our 
public  schools. 

The  progress  made  by  the  pupils  of  the  school  of  practice  is 
reported  as  favorable.  During  the  period  since  its  establishment 
until  the  present  time  176  young  ladies  have  passed  successfully 
through  it  as  special  teachers  and  have  been  appointed  as  regu- 
lar teachers. 

The  regulation  that  required  the  Normal  School  to 
push  through  inexperienced  and  occasionally  incompe- 


54  E,lla  Flagg  Young 

tent  girls  and  make  of  them  full-fledged  teachers  broke 
down,  and  Mrs.  Young  was  influential  in  breaking  it. 
If  teachers  were  to  be  trained  for  the  public  schools 
she  insisted  that  they  should  get  real  training. 

But  she  saw  clearly  that  the  board  was  not  willing 
to  furnish  the  freedom  necessary  to  carry  on  satisfac- 
tory work,  and  refused  to  remain.  Political  influences 
were  at  work  in  the  board  making  it  impossible  for  the 
principals  to  keep  incompetent  students  from  gradua- 
tion, when  such  students  could  secure  the  ear  of  a 
member  of  the  board  of  education.  That  such  was 
the  case  is  clearly  evident  from  the  rule  passed  by  the 
board  in  1873,  brought  about  by  the  agitation  over  the 
resignation  of  the  principal  of  the  school  of  practice. 
This  rule  gave  authority  to  the  committee  on  examina- 
tion and  the  committee  on  the  Normal  School  to  re- 
move "  any  pupils  who  do  not  give  promise  of  success 
as  teachers  in  the  public  schools."  This  provision,  if 
it  had  been  lived  up  to  by  the  board,  would  have  se- 
cured the  demand  which  Mrs.  Young  made  and  would 
have  made  of  the  Normal  School  a  real  training  school 
for  teachers. 

Mrs.  Young's  withdrawal  compelled  the  board  to 
put  the  school  on  an  independent  basis  and  to  organize 
it  so  that  it  had  the  power  to  do  its  work  without  inter- 
ference from  outside  influences.  When  she  left  the 
school  she  promised  the  superintendent  that  she  would 
return  to  the  Normal  in  another  capacity  should  an 
opportunity  offer.  In  June,  1872,  a  year  and  a  half 
after  having  left  the  headship  of  the  school  of  practice, 
she  returned  to  the  Normal  and  taught  mathematics 
and  helped  direct  the  work  of  the  school  of  practice, 


Early    Training  of   Teachers  55 

She  remained  in  this  position  until  she  became  principal 
of  the  Scammon  School,  in  1876.  Her  work  in  training 
teachers  produced  lasting  effects  in  Chicago,  and  her 
own  success  in  school  work  has  come  in  no  small  degree 
through  her  work  in  this  direction  at  that  period.  She 
had  become  a  student  of  professional  literature  and  had 
begun  her  interest  in  outside  improv^ements  that  made 
her  a  leader  in  the  work.  The  reports  of  William  T. 
Harris,  then  superintendent  of  schools  in  St.  Louis, 
came  to  her  and  she  used  these  to  good  advantage. 

In  1877,  the  year  after  Mrs.  Young  left  the  Normal 
School,  it  was  closed  by  the  board  of  education.  Os- 
tensibly the  reason  for  closing  it  was  that  it  was  "  grad- 
uating more  teachers  than  were  needed,"  and  that  the 
standard  of  teaching  could  be  elevated  by  the  examina- 
tion system  of  admitting  candidates  to  the  schools.  The 
real  reason  for  the  closing  of  the  school  was  that  poli- 
tics had  again  got  possession  of  the  situation  and  had 
used  this  means  of  curtailing  the  influence  of  the  public 
schools.  In  spite  of  the  efforts  that  had  been  made  by 
leaders  in  education  to  establish  professional  prepara- 
tion for  the  teachers  in  Chicago,  the  board  of  educa- 
tion was  opposed  to  any  system  that  was  likely  to 
produce  too  great  efficiency  in  the  public  schools. 


CHAPTER  V 

A  CHAPTER  IN  THE  HISTORY  OF  BUILDING  A 
CITY  SCHOOL 

TN  1876  Mrs.  Young,  unexpectedly  to  herself,  was 
■*■  elected  principal  of  the  Scammon  School.  This 
position  she  held  for  three  years,  and  then  went  to 
the  principalship  of  the  Skinner,  one  of  the  three  larg- 
est schools  in  the  city.  In  this  place  she  remained  until 
she  was  made  assistant  superintendent  in  1887. 

The  Skinner  School  was  situated  in  a  cosmopolitan 
district  on  Aberdeen  and  Jackson  streets,  very  near 
Tilden  Avenue.  Many  well-to-do  people  lived  in  it, 
but  one  part  was  occupied  by  a  rough,  uncouth  class  of 
Italians  whose  children  were  under  no  control  what- 
ever, and  with  no  idea  of  respect  nor  what  was  due  to 
others.  For  a  long  time  Mrs.  Young  hesitated  about 
taking  the  large  school,  but  finally  decided  that  she 
could  do  it.  Before  making  up  her  mind  about  the 
place  she  went  over  the  district  from  one  end  to  an- 
other, many  times,  until  she  was  familiar  with  the 
people  and  the  activities  of  the  community  and  with 
what  was  demanded  by  them  of  the  school. 

When  Mrs.  Young  came  to  the  principalship  women 
had  taken  the  greater  number  of  all  subordinate  school 
positions  in  the  city.  There  were  nearly  a  thousand 
women  teachers  in  the  schools,  half  of  the  high-school 
positions  were  held  by  women,  and  half  of  the  prin- 
cipals of  elementary  schools  were  women.  The  move- 
ment of  women  into  the  school  inaugurated  during  the 

56 


Building  a  City  School  57 

war  had  gone  on  with  increasing  rapidity  each  year. 
Practically  every  position  except  principal  of  high- 
school  and  the  superintendency  had  come  to  them. 

Mrs.  Young's  place  in  the  woman  movement  de- 
mands further  consideration  because  of  its  bearing  on 
the  problems  of  education  throughout  the  country. 
Everywhere  in  America  girls'  and  women's  education 
was  being  patterned  on  the  basis  of  that  given  to  men. 
Women's  colleges  adopted  curricula  used  in  men's 
colleges.  In  the  intellectual  training  of  women  no 
differences  were  made  between  mental  capacities  and 
*  interests  of  the  sexes.  "The  reason  for  pointing  out  this 
fact  here  is  that  Mrs.  Young  took  the  work  of  educa- 
tion at  man's  level  and  held  as  a  standard  of  excellence 
the  demands  and  attainments  set  up  by  the  schools  at  a 
time  when  higher  education  was  for  men.  For  the 
most  part,  all  her  work  has  been  influenced  by  this 
doctrine,  early  fixed  in  her  character,  of  the  essential 
similarity  of  minds,  whether  in  men  or  women. 

In  consequence  of  this  viewpoint  she  has  refused 
to  accept  favors  on  account  of  her  sex. '  One  of  her 
first  acts  as  principal  was  to  put  herself  on  record  as 
being  able  to  earn  any  honor  given  her.  Women  prin- 
cipals at  that  time  were  holding  positions  without 
having  passed  examinations  for  certificates,  a  practice 
which  had  already  been  held  up  to  ridicule  by  a  con- 
temporary educational  writer.  On  the  very  first  occa- 
sion she  came  up  for  examination  as  principal.  Her 
experience  as  a  high-school  teacher  stood  her  In  good 
stead  as  a  preparation  and  she  passed  the  examination, 
standing  first  on  the  list  of  candidates.  As  Superin- 
tendent Rowland  expressed  it  at  the  time,  she  held  a 


58  Ella  Flagg  Young 

certificate  "by  right  and  not  by  courtesy,"  and  the 
board  of  education  passed  a  regulation  then  that  all 
future  principals  were  to  secure  certificates  through 
examinations. 

Another  instance  of  this  independent  spirit  of  the 
woman  is  related  in  connection  with  her  election  to 
the  chairmanship  of  a  large  committee  composed  of 
principals.  After  the  election  and  before  the  first 
meeting,  a  friendly  man  principal  offered,  because  of 
her  probable  unfamiliarity  with  parliamentary  prac- 
tice, to  carry  the  discussion  for  her,  but  she  thanked 
him  and  said  she  preferred  to  try  it  herself.  When  the 
committee  had  completed  its  work  the  same  gentleman 
reported  her  direction  of  the  discussions  as  remarkably 
successful. 

Her  schools  were  noted  for  the  best  in  current  and 
accepted  educational  procedure.  She  had  a  masterful 
grasp  upon  the  problems  of  the  day,  and  she  drew 
upon  the  leaders  in  school  work  throughout  the  country. 
She  was  not  a  "reformer."  While  full  of  the  most 
advanced  ideas  of  the  time,  she  was  always  unwilling 
to  impose  them  upon  others.  She  did  not  wish  them 
accepted  unless  understood  and  indorsed  by  those 
working  with  her.  She  was  never  radical,  and  struck 
out  no  new  and  extravagant  paths,  but  accepted  and 
utilized  the  best  ideals  and  practices  as  she  found  them. 
At  the  same  time  she  refined  and  humanized  these 
practices  to  fit  her  own  teachers  and  pupils. 

One  may  quite  truly  say  of  her  at  this  period  in  her 
life  that  she  represented  the  sanely  feminine  conserv- 
ator of  forces,  as  she  found  them,  rather  than  the 
innovator  or  reformer  in  school  and  society.     Her  teach- 


Building  a  City  School  59 

ing  and  reading  represented  the  solid  elements  in  cul- 
ture and  educational  theory,  for  as  yet  she  had  not 
attempted  the  experimental  and  the  speculative  either 
in  thinking  or  in  the  management  of  her  school.  Yet 
so  keen  and  clear  was  her  grasp  of  the  problems  of 
the  day  that  Mr.  Rowland,  then  superintendent  of 
schools,  held  her  judgment  in  very  high  regard  and 
consulted  her  on  vital  matters. 

But  it  is  necessary  to  see  more  than  a  conservative 
principal  in  Mrs.  Young's  work  at  the  head  of  a  school. 
Her  achievement  as  a  principal  rested  mainly  on  her 
organization  and  her  management  of  the  school.  In 
the  sense  in  which  we  use  these  terms  in  modern  city 
education  no  such  things  existed  as  organization  and 
administration,  or  they  existed  only  in  rudimentary 
forms.  They  are  the  result  of  more  recent  develop- 
ment and  work  in  large  city  schools.  There  was  then 
no  place  to  go  for  models  in  directing  large  school 
plants.  Large  schools  already  existed,  but  they  were 
rather  loose  aggregations  of  parts,  and  had  little 
definite  cohesion. 

The  rapid  growth  of  the  city,  with  its  cosmopolitan 
population,  had  brought  together  all  sorts  of  children 
and  thrown  them  into  the  schools.  Mrs.  Young's 
objection  to  the  use  of  the  term  "melting  pot"  in 
describing  the  work  of  the  public  school  was  an  out- 
growth of  the  efforts  she  made  to  handle  in  a  definite 
form  the  various  elements  in  her  own  school.  Today 
we  think  nothing  of  handlinoj  a  school  representing  a 
dozen  different  languages  and  races,  but  at  that  period 
the  problem  was  a  new  one  and  one  concerning  which 
many  most  intelligent  persons  entertained  grave  doubt 


6o  Ella  Flagg  Young 

of  an  adequate  solution.  To  make  the  difficulty  still 
greater,  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  attempt  to  sub- 
stitute for  the  "  rod,"  as  a  means  of  managing  children, 
school  government  based  on  intelligent  and  sympathetic 
appeal  to  children.  Mrs.  Young  rigidly  opposed 
corporal  punishment  as  a  basis  of  control,  and  notices 
circulated  to  the  teachers  of  her  school  from  her  office 
requested  "hands  off"  in  the  management  of  the 
school. 

While  others  were  teaching  and  preaching  "  democ- 
racy and  freedom"  with  blare  and  great  noise,  the 
Skinner  Elementary  School  in  1885  was  carrying  on  its 
work  with  an  eye  to  the  independence  and  cooperation 
of  each  individual  child  and  teacher  within  its  walls. 
Class-work  was  organized  in  such  a  way  that  each  one 
felt  himself  a  contributor  to  the  whole.  In  arithmetic, 
for  example,  Mrs.  Young's  method  was  distinctively 
democratic.  Instead  of  having  "  a  method"  of  solving 
problems,  a  common  practice  among  principals  in  teach- 
ing this  subject,  she  had  as  many  methods  as  there  were 
teachers  in  her  school.  "  No  one  can  work  in  another's 
harness,"  was  a  favorite  expression  of  hers  to  her 
teachers,  and  as  a  consequence  she  Insisted  that  each 
one  was  to  make  her  own  contributions  to  the  life  and 
interests  of  the  school.  Visitors  remarked  that  they 
found  as  much  value  in  going  through  the  rooms  of  the 
school  as  they  could  have  found  had  they  gone  to  many 
schools,  because  each  teacher  worked  out  her  subjects 
in  her  own  way. 

In  faculty  meetings  Mrs.  Young  insisted  on  discus- 
sions giving  free  play  to  ideas  of  each  person,  and 
never  attempted  to  dominate  the  minds  and  independ- 


Building  «  City  School  6i 

ence  of  the  teachers.  She  was  always  exceedingly 
generous  in  her  appreciation  of  new  ideas  and  acknowl- 
edged her  obligations  to  the  teachers  who  presented 
them  to  her  and  the  school.  "What  new  ideas  have 
you  today  in  this  work?"  was  a  common  question  of 
hers,  and  the  person  called  upon  for  such  help  felt  that 
she  was  really  a  part  of  the  creative  force  of  the  school. 

Mrs.  Young's  school  stood  out  in  the  community  as 
an  influence  in  affairs  of  the  people.  She  had  become 
thoroughly  acquainted  with  her  neighborhood  and  tried 
to  serve  it.  Former  Mayor  Harrison,  Sr.,  remarked 
on  several  occasions  that  this  school  was  the  most 
effective  social  institution  in  the  city.  The  demands 
upon  the  schools  to  meet  the  needs  of  society  in  a  more 
effective  way,  which  had  been  growing  for  several  years 
in  intensity,  found  an  open  statement  in  the  acts  of  the 
legislature  of  Illinois  in  1883  and  1887  "to  secure  to  all 
children  the  benefits  of  an  elementary  education."  Mrs. 
Young  had  been  doing  all  she  could  long  before  the  pas- 
sage of  these  acts  to  make  her  teachers  feel  the  responsi- 
bility for  keeping  children  in  school.  She  had  attempted 
to  follow  up  the  children  and  keep  in  touch  with  them 
and  their  homes  in  order  to  hold  them  in  school  until 
they  were  old  enough  to  meet  the  demands  of  society 
upon  them.  In  the  work  she  did  in  her  schools  to 
secure  to  children  the  benefits  of  elementary  education 
she  was  a  pioneer  in  the  vocational  guidance  of  children. 

It  is  easy  now  to  look  back  in  the  light  of  present 
school  administration  and  see  the  work  of  that  time  as 
incomplete  and  transitory.  But  when  one  sees  how 
slowly,  out  of  prejudices,  traditions,  mixture  of  national 
and  race  elements,  and  varied  interests  of  the  city, 


62  Ella  Flagg  Young 

school  organization  has  gradually  been  wrought,  one 
can  appreciate  the  enormity  of  the  task  of  that  period 
in  trying  to  put  a  public  school  into  active  and  effective 
touch  with  the  community.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
Mrs.  Young  made  her  school  stand  out  prominently 
as  a  social  force  and  as  a  well-organized  institution, 
because  visitors,  both  from  within  and  without  the  city, 
were  numerous  and  reported  the  great  value  of  the 
work  as  they  found  it.  In  her  school  she  held  firmly 
to  high  ideals  of  scholarship.  She  was  rigid  with  her- 
self and  required  a  high  standard  of  efficiency  from  all 
with  whom  she  was  associated.  Her  teachers  believed 
in  her  and  were  loyal  to  the  school. 

As  in  her  work  in  the  practice  school,  Mrs.  Young 
came  into  intimate  contact  with  politics  and  with 
political  methods  in  the  city  schools.  A  few  instances 
of  this  contact  will  suffice  to  show  that  she  learned  to 
deal  with  political  forces  at  this  early  period.  Shortly 
after  leaving  the  Normal  School  for  a  principalship 
she  saw  the  Normal  closed  by  the  board  of  education. 
As  already  noted,  the  school  was  said  to  be  an  un- 
necessary expense.  "  Influences,"  evident  In  the  move- 
ment, pushed  it  through  over  the  protests  of  educational 
leaders.  In  this  act  Mrs.  Young  gained  a  new  lesson 
as  to  what  schools  had  to  expect  from  politics  in  school 
boards,  and  years  later  she  found  the  fruits  of  closing 
the  Normal  in  Chicago's  poorly  prepared  teachers. 

Mrs.  Young  also  faced  the  necessity  of  selling  her 
pay-warrants  for  several  years  at  a  discount  because 
the  board  of  education  had  no  money  to  provide  for 
payment  of  the  teachers.  As  late  as  1881  teachers 
were  compelled  to  accept  whatever  merchants  were 


Building  a  City  School  63 

willing  to  give  them  for  these  monthly  warrants.  It 
was  to  the  credit  of  the  Skinner  School  that  business 
men  in  the  vicinity  bought  the  warrants  of  the  teachers 
of  that  school  at  their  face  value.  Politics  and  poor 
management  were  alone  accountable  for  such  a  condi- 
tion in  the  finances  of  the  schools. 

One  of  the  close  friends  of  Mrs.  Young,  Superin- 
tendent Pickard,  was  ousted  from  that  position  through 
the  same  kind  of  policy.  "  Influences  "  brought  into  the 
assistant  superintendency  a  man  from  the  outside  for 
the  purpose  of  ridding  Chicago  of  Mr.  Pickard.  This 
man  made  life  miserable  for  the  superintendent  and 
later  supplanted  him,  but  was  from  the  first  wholly 
incompetent  and  lasted  in  the  position  barely  two  years. 
Another  instance  of  political  influence  which  came  close 
to  Mrs.  Young  during  the  period  of  her  school  prin- 
cipalship  was  in  her  own  school.  Her  engineer  had 
proved  incompetent  and  unreliable,  and  she  had  asked 
for  his  removal.  A  president  of  the  board  of  education 
interceded  for  him  and  attempted  to  force  her  to  retain 
him  in  the  position.  The  character  of  Mrs.  Young  was 
shown  very  clearly  in  her  reply  to  this  demand:  "I 
shall  do  what  is  best  for  the  Skinner  School,"  and  this 
reply  settled  the  matter  in  favor  of  efficiency  and  justice 
in  the  management  of  the  school. 

Scholarship  and  classical  culture  were  making  a  last 
stand  against  science  and  utilitarianism  in  education 
during  this  period.  Mrs.  Young  was  deeply  interested 
in  both  sides  of  this  issue,  but  during  the  period  of  her 
princlpalshlp  she  emphasized  the  former  as  an  ideal, 
both  for  her  pupils  and  her  teachers.  Superintendent 
Howland  was  a  scholar  interested  in  literary  and  aca- 


64  E,lla  Flagg  Young 

demic  ideals,  and  his  influence  on  Mrs.  Young  was 
marked  during  this  time.  Among  other  evidences  of 
her  interest  in  literary  and  classical  culture,  the  estab- 
lishment by  Mrs.  Young  of  a  "club"  for  the  study 
of  English  grammar  was  in  direct  line  with  this  tend- 
ency. It  met  every  two  weeks,  at  first  in  the  school  but 
later  at  her  home.  From  reports  gathered  from  mem- 
bers of  that  club  it  is  evident  that  the  leader  tried 
harder  to  inspire  her  teachers  with  a  love  of  learning 
than  in  a  mere  correct  use  of  grammar.  From  gram- 
mar the  club  soon  branched  into  the  study  of  Shake- 
speare and  the  modern  dramas.  Plays  were  read  and 
presented  by  members  taking  each  a  part  for  the  occa- 
sion. Greek  drama,  Dante,  and  other  forms  of  great 
literature  were  studied  and  discussed.  Mrs.  Young 
made  it  a  practice  to  suggest  books  to  be  reported  on 
by  members  of  the  club.  Long  after  she  left  the  princi- 
palship  the  club  took  up  psychology,  ethics,  and  philoso- 
phy, work  in  which  Mrs.  Young  became  more  and 
more  interested. 

The  study  of  English  became  an  important  part  of 
the  curriculum  both  in  high  and  elementary  ^schools 
during  this  period.  In  1883  Superintendent  George 
Rowland  says  in  his  report  to  the  Board  of  Education 
regarding  the  high  school : 

I  have  often  thought,  though  I  have  never  found  my  idea 
fully  realized,  that  a  course  in  English  might  be  prepared  and 
successfully  carried  out,  which  should  be  worthy  to  take  its 
place  by  the  side  of  our  classical  courses;  which  should  include 
both  a  critical  study  of  our  language,  and  a  large  and  thought- 
ful reading  of  some  of  our  best  authors,  familiarizing  the  pupils 
with  all  the  classic  study  so  needful  for  the  appreciation  of  our 
prose  and  poetical  writers.    With  this  should  be  a  thorough  and 


Building  a  City  School  6^ 

systematic  training  in  composition. ,  The  usual  study  of  rhetoric 
seems  comparatively  futile,  save  in  the  knowledge  acquired  of  a 
few  terms,  and  the  time  devoted  to  English  literature  is  often 
largely  expended  upon  the  history  of  unimportant  and  forgot- 
ten authors,  v^^ith  little  appreciation  or  knowledge  of  our  real 
literature. 


Mrs.  Young  took  a  deep  interest  in  placing  the  best 
literature  in  the  hands  of  elementary-school  children. 
She  was  not  satisfied  that  they  should  read  the  text- 
books, which  often  contained  meaningless  material  and 
little  of  the  best  authors.  Several  years  later  she  out- 
lined In  an  address  before  the  National  Education 
Association  her  notion  of  the  kind  of  literature  to  be 
placed  In  the  course  for  lower  schools,  and  her  Ideas 
expressed  at  that  time  were  the  fruitage  of  her  years 
as  principal.  She  secured  permission  from  one  of  the 
large  publishers  to  reprint  some  of  the  classics  for 
supplementary  reading  In  her  school.  This  was  one 
of  the  earliest  attempts  to  give  children  In  the  grades 
the  benefit  of  the  best  literature.  In  connection  with 
the  reading  she  developed  the  Idea  that  children  should 
read  for  meaning,  that  there  should  not  be  the  two  or 
three  years  of  parrot-like  mumbling  of  meaningless 
symbols  in  the  early  grades  of  her  school.  In  provid- 
ing a  library  for  her  school  from  money  obtained 
through  giving  concerts  and  from  donations  by  Judge 
Skinner,  she  further  enlarged  the  opportunity  for 
children  to  become  acquainted  with  good  literature. 
This  was  one  of  the  first  school  libraries  In  the  schools 
of  the  city. 

In  other  respects  the  curriculum  of  the  Skinner 
School  partook  of  the   same   advanced  character  as 


66  Ella  Flagg  Young 

reading  and  literature.    As  John  D.  Phllbrick  pointed 

out  In  1885 : 

The  old  standard  subjects  of  Instruction  are  uniformly  re- 
tained, namely,  reading,  spelling,  writing,  arithmetic,  grammar, 
geography,  and  history  of  the  United  States:  comprising  the 
trivium,  or  three  R's,  of  the  ancient  school  for  the  people,  and 
the  quadrivium,  which  is  the  accession  of  a  more  advanced  era, 
and  yet  an  era  preceding  the  modern  school  revival,  dating  back 
about  fifty  years.  The  last  half-century  has  witnessed  a  very 
considerable  increase  in  the  subjects  of  instruction.  These  sub- 
jects are  .object-teaching,  singing,  drawing,  g>'mnastics,  vocal 
culture,  English  literature,  the  metric  system,  physical  geography, 
physiology  (including  anatomy  and  hj^giene),  geometry  and 
mensuration,  bookkeeping,  astronomy,  the  German  language, 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  general  history,  sewing,  and 
perhaps  some  others.* 

Such  an  array  of  subjects  gave  rise  to  the  demand 
for  "shortening  and  enriching"  the  curriculum.  Of 
the  older  subjects  thus  enumerated,  Mrs.  Young  secured 
most  satisfactory  results.  Her  work  was  valuable  not 
merely  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  scholars,  but  as 
an  epitome  of  the  conflict  of  the  old  and  new  curricula 
as  pointed  out  by  Phllbrick.  By  this  work  the  three  R's 
were  developed  to  the  highest  standard  of  effective- 
ness, a  condition  brought  about  by  the  necessity  of 
showing  their  right  to  be  continued  In  the  schools  In  the 
face  of  the  demands  of  newer  and  more  modern  sub- 
jects. As  already  pointed  out,  Mrs.  Young  was  a 
conservator  of  the  best  of  the  time,  and  In  the  matter 
of  the  curriculum  she  brought  out  the  very  best  In  the 
material  found  In  the  course  of  study.  A  brief  state- 
ment of  her  work  in  this  direction  will  make  the  point 
clear. 


*  City  School  Systems  in  the  United  States.    U.  S.  Bureau  of  Educa- 
tion, Washington,  1885. 


Building  a  City  School  67 

In  penmanship  she  broke  away  from  the  practice, 
common  in  the  lower  grades,  of  having  the  children 
print,  and  placed  writing  in  every  grade  of  the  school, 
introducing  pen  and  ink  from  the  first.  "Arm  move- 
ment" was  practiced,  which  with  the  use  of  pen  and 
ink  overcame  the  cramped  pencil  work  of  the  lower 
grades  complained  of  so  generally  at  the  time.  Prizes 
offered  for  the  best  penmanship  in  the  schools  of  the 
city  were  awarded  to  the  Skinner  School  each  year  of 
her  principalship  and  for  the  year  following  her 
withdrawal. 

Arithmetic  was  one  of  the  subjects  which  she  took 
most  interest  in  and  worked  on  hardest.  It  delighted 
her  heart  to  find  a  child  quick  in  figures.  Often  she 
would  step  into  a  room,  call  the  attention  of  the  chil- 
dren for  a  minute,  ask  one  or  two  questions  In  arith- 
metic pertaining  to  their  grade,  receive  a  quick  answer, 
and  pass  on  to  another  room.  She  laid  stress  on 
"mental"  arithmetic  and  on  work  having  a  practical 
bearing  on  the  other  interests.  She  particularly  dis- 
couraged assignment  of  home  work  because  the  child 
needed  help  of  the  teacher  and  in  home  work  he  did 
not  get  this,  nor  could  it  be  told  how  much  was  his 
own  endeavor.  Great  emphasis  was  placed  on  the 
Individuality  of  method  In  arithmetic,  each  teacher  and 
each  pupil  being  urged  to  use  the  method  that  served 
him  the  best. 

Grammar  Mrs.  Young  taught  herself.  The  course 
was  given  In  the  eighth  grade  and  emphasized  the 
understanding  and  correct  use  of  language.  In  history 
two  or  three  distinctive  features  of  her  method  need 
attention.     Since  the  upper  grades  In  her  school  were 


68  Ella  Flagg  Young 

taught  departmentally,  a  decided  innovation  then,  the 
work  could  be  more  highly  organized.  A  miniature 
house  of  congress  gave  opportunity  for  the  necessary 
instruction  in  the  United  States  Constitution;  debates 
were  used  to  good  effect  by  children,  often  drawing  on 
the  aid  of  prominent  men  from  the  outside;  and  sev- 
eral books  used  as  sources  of  material  gave  the  children 
opportunity  to  select  and  judge  in  their  study. 

Of  the  newer  subjects  —  singing,  drawing,  clay- 
modeling,  and  gymnastics  —  much  was  made  in  the 
school.  "Shortening  and  enriching"  the  course  of 
study  appealed  to  Mrs.  Young  only  in  so  far  as  they 
added  life  and  Interest  to  the  work  of  the  children  and 
teachers  in  the  school.  Drawing,  which  at  the  time 
was  regarded  as  a  bridge  between  academic  work  and 
the  "practical"  life,  was  taught  in  every  grade.  It 
had  been  optional  in  the  schools  until  1884  and  was 
then  placed  on  the  regular  list  of  subjects  to  be  taught. 
So  well  was  the  work  done  that  the  Skinner  School 
was  awarded  the  "W.  K.  Sullivan  Prize"  in  drawing 
each  year,  over  all  the  schools  of  the  city.  One  way 
of  making  drawing  effective  was  in  having  pupils  use 
it  in  all  their  work  as  a  means  of  illustration,  giving 
rise  to  the  term  "graphic  recitation." 

In  addition  to  the  regular  work  of  the  school  as 
ordinarily  regarded  then,  the  physical  welfare  and  com- 
fort of  children  and  teachers  were  carefully  guarded. 
Both  ventilation  and  lighting  were  subjects  of  great 
concern  by  the  leaders  in  education.  The  "  fan  "  system 
and  steam  heating  had  both  been  introduced  into  the 
newer  schools.  But  Mrs.  Young  decided  that  only 
"  window  "  ventilation  could  be  made  thoroughly  ade- 


Building  a  City  School  69 

quate,  and  she  devised  a  scheme  of  using  a  board 
inserted  at  the  bottom  of  the  window  for  this  purpose. 
She  likewise  studied  in  detail  the  system  of  heating 
until  she  was  as  competent  as  a  trained  engineer  to  run 
the  machinery  for  heating  the  school.  Wherever  pos- 
sible the  children  were  arranged  so  as  to  get  the  most 
value  from  the  light  of  the  room.  She  was  one  of  the 
first  to  follow  the  suggestions  given  by  eye  specialists 
as  to  protection  of  children's  eyes  in  school  work. 

In  common  with  educators  of  the  day,  Mrs.  Young 
believed  that  children  came  to  school  to  work  and  not 
to  play.  The  kindergarten  influence  had  not  yet  pene- 
trated school  discipline.  Much  was  made,  therefore, 
of  gymnastics,  but  play  was  confined  to  the  hours  out- 
side of  school  time.  On  the  playground  she  was  active 
for  cooperation  and  kept  a  close  watch  over  the  children 
in  their  activities. 

Very  little  handwork  was  done  at  this  time  in  the 
elementary  schools,  and  manual  training  did  not  make 
its  appearance  until  the  very  close  of  the  period.  Mrs. 
Young  gave  some  attention  to  handwork,  but  she  had 
not  yet  seen  the  value  of  this  form  of  education.  In 
this  respect  she  was  not  unlike  other  educators  In  ele- 
mentary education.  Superintendent  Rowland  did  not 
rank  handwork  with  mental  work.  In  his  report  to  the 
Board  of  Education  he  says : 

Our  schools  are  to  educate,  not  servants,  but  citizens;  and 
whenever  the  darning  and  frying,  the  starching  and  stewing 
become  important  parts  of  the  school  work,  the  wealthier  classes 
will  send  to  private  schools,  and  the  public  school,  to  which 
we  look  for  the  preparation  of  our  children  for  responsible 
places  in  our  business  and  social  life,  will  become  but  an  indus- 
trial school  for  cooks  and  second  girls,  instead  of  intelligent  men 


70  Ella  Flagg  Young 

and  women  ready  to  act  well  their  parts  in  whatever  pi     'its 
their  inclinations  or  necessities  may  lead  them  to  engage. 

Because  of  her  early  training,  Mrs.  Young  nev  * 
accepted  quite  this  extreme  view,  but  that  she  was  ac.  - 
demic  and  emphasized  the  literary  side  of  the  curric- 
ulum is  evident  from  the  character  of  her  school.  More 
and  more  she  saw  the  necessity  for  using  all  of  the 
energy  and  capacity  of  her  children,  and  her  school 
kept  up  with  the  movement  of  introducing  such  sub- 
jects as  were  considered  possible  for  that  purpose. 
Drawing  and  clay-modeling  were  the  ones  most  gener- 
ally accepted,  and  they  were  both  taught  in  her  school. 

No  one  was  ever  In  doubt  in  her  school  as  to  the 
position  Mrs.  Young  held  in  matters  of  conduct.  She 
meant  business  always.  In  discipline  she  was  severe 
but  just,  permitting  no  half-way  measures,  yet  allowing 
each  one  as  much  freedom  as  he  knew  how  to  make 
use  of  In  his  work.  Noise  never  troubled  her  in  a  room 
if  by  it  children  were  getting  something  done.  "  Her 
power  to  know  what  was  going  on  within  the  school 
was  uncanny,"  says  one  of  her  former  teachers.  Appar- 
ently without  effort  she  always  knew  where  trouble  was 
or  where  things  were  moving  smoothly. 

Her  severity  was  intellectual.  Beneath  it  all  was 
the  deepest  sympathy  and  humaneness.  She  felt  her 
own  incapacity  to  express  adequately  her  feelings,  and 
on  many  an  occasion  asked  some  of  her  intimate  friends 
in  her  school  to  do  some  mission  of  kindliness  because 
she  had  not  the  power  to  do  it  herself.  If  a  teacher 
or  a  pupil  was  in  trouble  she  was  the  first  to  help  in 
some  direct  or  indirect  way.  The  loyalty  felt  by  all 
members  of  the  school  for  its  interests  was  one  of  the 


-  o 


Building  a  City  School  71 

most  noteworthy  parts  of  the  old  Skinner  School.  As 
in  all  the  other  positions  she  held,  Mrs.  Young  bound 
the  members  of  this  school  to  her  as  life-long  friends. 
Her  memory  for  names  of  children  persisted  long 
beyond  their  school  days,  and  she  has  been  known  to 
recall  instantly  the  name  of  some  urchin  of  Skinner 
School  days  in  the  bearded  man.  Two  pictures  of  her 
as  she  appeared  then,  one  drawn  by  a  teacher,  the  other 
by  a  child,  are  indicative  of  the  spirit  of  the  woman 
who  could  thus  inspire  and  hold  friendships.  The 
teacher  wrote : 

It  is  very  rare,  I  think,  that  one  finds  a  woman  who  will  do 
as  much  for  other  women  as  Mrs.  Young  did  for  her  teachers. 
Ever  mindful  of  our  comfort  and  pleasure,  she  suggested  that 
we  spend  an  evening  once  in  two  weeks  at  her  home  for  our 
club  instead  of  the  schoolroom,  giving  us  an  opportunity  to  go 
home,  shake  the  dust  of  the  schoolroom  from  our  clothes,  and 
feel  freshened  for  our  evening's  work. 

In  appearance,  when  I  first  knew  her,  Mrs.  Young  was 
slight,  dignified,  of  a  rather  grave  countenance,  wearing  a  black 
dress  with  white  linen  collar  and  cuffs,  her  black  hair  brushed 
smoothly  down  her  face,  making  quite  a  striking  appearance. 
Her  manner  was  courteous  and  pleasing  and  she  soon  won  the 
respect  of  her  pupils.  Although  her  expression  was  somewhat 
severe  when  in  repose,  when  she  talked  and  became  interested 
in  the  explanation  of  a  lesson,  her  face  lighted  up  and  became 
very  fascinating  and  almost  beautiful. 

The  other  picture  stands  out  clearly  and  gives  her 
power  with  children: 

.  .  .  When  I  was  a  little  girl  about  ten  years  of  age  I  went  to 
the  old  Scammon  School  on  Monroe  Street.  Our  principal, 
Ella  Flagg  Young,  gave  me  a  tortoise-shell-handled  penknife  as 
a  present  for  making  two  grades  in  one  year.  I  prized  the  knife 
greatly  and  kept  it  until  I  had  grown  up.  I  always  call  her  our 
principal  in  speaking  of  my  school  days  for  I  loved  her  dearly 


72  Ella  Flagg  Young 

then  and  still  love  her.  I  wish  you  could  see  her  as  she  stands 
before  me  in  my  mind's  eyes;  a  little  bit  of  a  woman,  about 
five  feet  tall,  all  vim,  push,  and  go-ahead.  My,  how  she  would 
make  those  boys  fly;  she  with  her  jet  black  hair  parted  in  the 
middle,  combed  back  smooth,  and  her  clean  olive  skin  and  even, 
white  teeth.  She  always  dressed  in  black,  very  plain.  And  her 
eyes,  such  eyes  that  looked  you  through  and  through.  When 
she  was  transferred  to  the  Skinner  School  I  asked  her  if  she 
would  allow  me  to  go  there  without  a  permit  from  the  board 
of  education,  but  she  told  me  she  could  not,  and  as  my  mother 
was  always  too  busy  to  go  and  I  was  not  old  enough  to  know 
how  to  go  for  myself,  I  consequently  lost  all  interest  in  the 
school  when  we  lost  our  beloved  principal,  and  I  quit  after 
going  all  those  interesting  years.  I  lost  my  beautiful  little  knife, 
too,  the  only  thing  I  had  to  remember  our  principal  by,  except 
her  picture  engraved  in  my  heart,  which  will  last  forever. 

Her  power  as  a  principal  was  thus  not  merely  a 
great  organizing  ability,  nor  an  insight  into  educational 
needs  and  educational  problems,  neither  was  it  wholly 
in  her  incomparable  capacity  for  work;  but  rather  in 
her  fine  appreciation  of  efforts  on  the  part  of  others. 
She  was  unselfish,  loyal  to  her  friends,  undemonstrative 
in  her  decisions  and  appreciations,  firm  for  the  right, 
and,  above  all,  imbued  with  a  broad  and  deep  love  for 
children.  Her  school  was  found  always  a  united, 
cooperating  group,  finely  organized  to  live  and  work 
on  a  high  plane. 


CHAPTER  VI 

SCHOOL  ADMINISTRATION  FROM  1 887  TO  1 899  AS 
SHOWN  IN  THE  WORK  OF  MRS.  YOUNG 

"'ITT'E  received  a  decided  shock,"  said  one  of  Mrs. 

'  '  Young's  teachers  then  in  the  Skinner  School, 
"when  Mr.  Brenan,  a  member  of  the  Board,  told  us 
that  our  principal  was  too  big  a  woman  for  her  present 
place  and  was  wanted  for  a  bigger  job."  With  two 
other  persons  she  was  elected  to  the  position  of 
Assistant  Superintendent  in  1887. 

Her  election  to  this  position  was  not  the  first  time 
she  had  been  considered  for  a  bigger  job.  Mrs.  Young 
had  been  growing  rapidly  in  her  grasp  of  educational 
affairs,  and  she  had  become  one  of  the  most  trust- 
worthy as  well  as  keenest  persons  in  the  system.  It  is 
desirable  to  review  some  of  the  persons  and  influences 
entering  into  her  life  and  thought  up  to  the  time  of 
her  appointment  as  assistant  superintendent.  She  had 
come  into  contact  with  one  after  another  of  the  promi- 
nent leaders  in  education  in  the  city  and  country,  whose 
points  of  view  she  eagerly  grasped  and  made  her  own. 
As  we  have  already  pointed  out,  she  had  been  academic 
and  formal  at  the  opening  of  her  career  as  a  teacher, 
relying  religiously  on  the  training  she  had  received; 
but  by  1887  she  had  changed  to  an  open  and  free  mind, 
quick  to  see  all  sides  of  every  question. 

Of  the  persons  influencing  her  professional  life 
during  the  early  years,  the  first  was  W.  H.  Wells, 
superintendent  of  schools  when  she  began  to  teach. 

73 


74  ^11^  Flagg  Young 

To  him  she  owed  her  earliest  interest  in  the  movement 
to  modernize  the  schools  through  object-teaching.  Mr. 
Wells'  faith  in  science  and  in  systematic  organization 
of  the  curriculum  was  shared  at  an  early  date  by  Mrs. 
Young.  At  about  the  same  period  she  came  into  con- 
tact with  the  intellectual  influence  of  William  T.  Harris, 
for  many  years  superintendent  of  the  schools  of  St. 
Louis.  Mrs.  Young  says  his  reports,  which  were 
remarkable  educational  documents,  were  the  first  pro- 
fessional literature  she  ever  read.  Harris  undoubtedly 
had  a  marked  influence  on  her  philosophical  point  of 
view.  His  was  one  of  the  most  effective  attempts  to 
introduce  the  doctrine  of  Hegel  into  this  country  and 
apply  it  to  educational  theory.  His  writings  were  an 
outgrowth  of  Hegelian  idealism.  The  reports  which 
he  wrote  were  based  on  this  philosophy,  and  Mrs. 
Young  was  so  diligent  a  student  that  her  thinking  and 
writing  show  its  influence. 

Another  important  influence  on  her  educational 
career  was  that  exerted  by  Superintendent  Pickard, 
with  whom  she  was  closely  associated  during  his  entire 
administration  in  the  Chicago  schools.  He  was  keen 
and  clear  in  his  own  thinking  and  could  not  help  influ- 
encing people  with  whom  he  came  in  contact.  His 
interest  in  Mrs.  Young's  professional  work  was  more 
than  passing,  as  shown  by  his  efforts  to  keep  her  in  the 
Normal  School.  Pickard  was  one  of  the  best  organ- 
izers that  the  schools  of  Chicago  have  possessed.  In 
the  matter  of  organization  his  greatness  lay  in  his 
ability  to  use  intelligence  in  system.  He  refused  to 
allow  the  schools  to  become  formal  and  dead  through 
a  rigid  system  of  gradation  and  classification.     Mrs. 


School  Administration  from   i88y  to   i8gg      75 

Young  has  always  shown  in  a  marked  degree  the  effects 
of  Pickard's  teaching  in  this  direction  and  has  used 
system  as  a  means  and  not  as  a  final  result  of  efforts  at 
improvement. 

To  Superintendent  Howland,  who  was  at  the  head 
of  the  high  school  when  she  graduated  and  began  her 
teaching  and  when  she  went  back  into  the  department 
of  practice,  Mrs.  Young  owed  much  of  her  interest  in 
fine  scholarship.  His  culture  and  his  training  in  class- 
ical literature  always  appealed  to  her.  In  her  paper 
before  the  National  Education  Association  in  1896  on 
literature  in  the  grades  she  shows  very  clearly  the 
effects  of  this  association  by  her  interest  in  literary 
scholarship.  She  has  always  referred  to  the  work  of 
Mr.  Howland  as  the  most  significant  in  Chicago  schools 
in  developing  a  right  sense  of  language  and  its  relation 
to  grammar  teaching. 

But  the  real  teacher  of  Mrs.  Young  during  these 
interesting  years  was  life  itself.  Systematic  study  and 
unwavering  service  to  the  schools  of  the  city  gave  her 
strength  and  poise  and  self-confidence.  She  was  not  a 
servile  imitator  nor  follower  of  anyone,  but  had  inter- 
preted for  herself  problems  as  they  had  arisen  in  the 
course  of  duty.  She  says  of  her  own  thinking  that  for 
many  years  she  was  a  close  student  of  mathematics 
because  of  its  exactness  and  clearness  of  demonstra- 
tion. But  there  came  a  time  when  she  realized  that 
its  exactness  was  its  own  limitation;  that  it  was  too 
mechanical.  From  the  study  of  mathematics  she  turned 
to  that  of  human  nature,  where  free  spirit  could  be 
followed  in  its  own  self-determined  course  in  realizing 
itself  through  growth.     To  a  remarkable  degree  she 


'J 6  Ella  Flagg  Young 

had  developed  faith  In  other  people.  Hers  was  the 
true  teaching  spirit;  the  confidence  in  other  persons 
that  begets  self-confidence.  Above  all  else,  she  became 
constructive  in  her  thinking  and  her  work.  In  an  ad- 
dress delivered  in  1887,  she  says:  "A  lecturer  who  has 
nothing  but  a  battering  ram  for  existing  systems,  thus 
throwing  the  educational  world  into  a  state  of  chaos, 
would  do  well  before  taking  the  field,  to  prepare  some- 
thing definite  to  suggest  in  place  of  the  things  to  be 
demolished." 

Thus  Mrs.  Young  entered  upon  the  work  which 
engaged  her  for  twelve  years.  She  had  grown  into  a 
commanding  personage  in  school  affairs  in  Chicago, 
and  from  henceforth  her  influence  Is  felt  in  growing 
measure  In  the  educational  policy  of  the  city.  Her 
appointment  came  at  a  time  when  the  superintending 
force  of  the  city  was  being  reconstructed.  The  follow- 
ing report  shows  the  kind  of  reorganization  being 
undertaken : 

First.  All  educational  departments  should  be  under  the  con- 
trol and  direction  of  the  superintendency,  not  only  in  theory,  but 
in  fact.  In  this  category  I  would  embrace  music,  drawing, 
German,  and  physical  culture,  as  well  as  the  ordinary  features 
of  the  course  of  instruction. 

Second.  The  superintendency  should  be  enlarged  by  the 
addition  of  at  least  two  assistant  superintendents,  in  order  to 
reduce  and  subdivide  the  present  enormous  labor  of  visiting 
schools  which  rests  on  three  earnest  and  faithful  men. 

I  believe  .  .  .  there  would  spring  better  methods  of  instruc- 
tion, better  discipline  in  the  corps  of  teachers,  better  and  higher 
attainments  among  the  teachers,  better  supervision  of  all  the 
departments  of  special  instruction,  and,  last  but  not  least,  bet- 
ter and  more  mature  and  confident  advice  and  assistance  to  the 
members  of  the  Board  in  fixing  the  course  of  instruction  and  in 


School  Administration  from   i88y  to   i8gg     77 

adopting  textbooks  and  other  educational  appliances.  {Report  of 
Board  of  Education,  1885,  PP-  19-20.) 

In  reorganizing  the  superintendency  in  accordance 
with  this  plan,  two  of  the  new  superintendents  were 
women.  A  woman  had  been  made  a  member  of  the 
board  in  1889  because  of  the  demand  made  by  women's 
organizations  based  on  the  grounds  of  the  prominence 
of  woman  in  the  teaching  profession,  though  this  was 
not  accomplished  without  opposition. 

The  first  and  most  obvious  reason  for  increase  of 
the  supervising  force  lay  in  the  growth  of  schools  and 
the  inability  of  the  superintendent  to  cover  the  ground. 
There  had  been  a  constant  growth  in  the  area  to  be 
supervised  and  in  the  numbers  of  pupils  and  teachers. 
In  1887  there  were  over  twelve  hundred  teachers  and 
principals,  and  all  of  the  supervising  was  done  by  the 
superintendent  and  two  assistant  superintendents  with 
the  aid  of  special  teachers  in  subjects  like  music,  draw- 
ing, and  German.     In  1889  — 

The  territory  embraced  in  thirty-three  entire  school  districts, 
and  in  parts  of  eight  others,  was  declared  annexed  to  Chicago. 
In  this  territory  were  over  one  hundred  schoolhouses,  cared  for 
by  an  equal  number  of  engineers  and  janitors,  and  accommodat- 
ing over  thirty  thousand  pupils.  There  were  nearly  eight 
hundred  teachers  employed  in  its  schools,  and  these  schools  were 
supervised  by  about  two  hundred  and  thirty  school  officers. 
{Report  of  President  of  Board.     Proceedings,  1890,  p.  12.) 

But  a  more  important,  reason  for  the  increase  In 
supervision  was  to.  be  found  in  the  character  of  the 
teaching  force.  Complaints  of  the  system  of  provid- 
ing teachers  were  chronic.  In  1885  the  superintendent 
says  that  the  high-school  graduate  "  is  well-nigh  help- 


78  Ella  Flagg  Young 

less  when  first  placed  in  a  room  of  fifty  or  sixty  pupils." 
The  cadet  system  placed  about  seventy  new  teachers 
in  the  schools  each  year  who  had  received  no  training 
for  their  work. 

If  the  superintending  force  were  sufBcient  to  allow  one  of 
the  assistants,  perhaps,  to  call  these  together  three  or  four  times 
a  week  for  instruction  in  the  plainer  principles  and  methods  of 
education,  and  specially  to  supervise  the  application  of  these 
principles  and  methods  in  the  daily  work  of  the  schoolroom, 
an  earlier  and  higher  success  would  undoubtedly  be  secured ;  and 
a  great  waste  of  eflFort  on  the  part  of  both  teacher  and  pupil 
be  avoided.  The  instruction  would  give  a  new  life  to  the  teach- 
ing, and  the  teaching  assist  to  a  better  comprehension  of  the 
instruction.    {Report  of  Board  of  Education,  1885,  pp.  52-53.) 

After  the  close  of  the  Normal  School  several  years 
previously,  the  teaching  force  gradually  deteriorated. 
Graduates  from  the  high  schools  were  admitted  with 
no  preparation  for  teaching  aside  from  the  academic 
courses,  at  first  on  an  examination,  but  later  on  a  grade 
of  ninety  per  cent  in  scholarship.  Examinations  for 
admission  to  outside  teachers  were  very  superficial, 
hardly  exceeding  the  requirements  given  for  entrance 
to  the  first  year  of  the  high  school.  This  deplorable 
condition  had  its  explanation  in  the  politics  which,  as 
already  noted,  closed  the  Normal  School.  It  was  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  critics  found  Chicago  teaching 
about  the  poorest  in  any  city  in  the  country.  J.  M. 
Rice,  writing  on  the  subject  in  1893,  said  there  was  a 
very  small  percentage  of  teachers  who  were  Normal 
graduates,  and  qualifications  were  very  low.  The  work 
he  found  unscientific  and  on  a  low  standard. 

Some  of  the  teaching  was  by  far  the  most  absurd  I  ever  wit- 
nessed.    The  amount  of  objective  work  is  extremely  limited, 


School  Administration  from  iSSy  to  i8gg     79 

even  in  the  lower  grades,  and  the  sciences  are  not  included  in 
the  curriculum.  The  education  of  teachers  after  appointment 
is  devolved  on  the  superintendent  and  his  assistants.  In  Chi- 
cago, however,  but  little  has  been  done  by  them,  thus  far,  sys- 
tematically to  instruct  the  teachers  in  educational  methods  and 
principles.     {Public  School  Systems  of  the  U.  S.,  1893,  p.  170.) 

Rice's  article  stirred  up  wholesale  criticism,  but  we 
find  the  board  and  the  superintendent  making  excuses 
or  defending  the  situation. 

The  president  of  the  board  thus  expresses  himself: 

Much  has  been  said  in  the  public  press  about  incompetent 
and  inefficient  teachers  in  our  public  schools,  but  I  was  much 
pleased  to  learn  from  the  special  reports  required  under  our 
rules  to  be  made  by  the  superintendent  of  schools  and  his  assist- 
ants to  the  committee  on  school  management  just  before  the 
close  of  the  school  year,  so  that  incompetent  or  inefficient 
teachers  may  not  be  reappointed  by  the  Board;  that  last  year, 
out  of  over  3,500  teachers  in  our  public  schools,  only  the  names 
of  about  twenty  incompetent  teachers  were  presented  by  the 
superintendent  for  the  consideration  of  this  committee.  Surely 
this  speaks  well  for  the  extraordinary  ability  and  efficiency  of 
our  teachers.  I  do  not  think  any  other  city  could  make  such  a 
record,  but  perhaps  the  standard  of  our  superintendents  does 
not  quite  come  up  to  the  expectations  of  the  members  of  the 
board  or  of  the  public  press.  (Report  of  Board  of  Education, 
1893.) 

Later  in  the  same  report,  the  superintendent  points 
out  that  there  had  been  a  great  amount  of  criticism 
about  the  schools  made  by  both  competent  and  Incom- 
petent critics,  saying  that  "after  several  months  of  in- 
vestigation and  inspection  of  every  department  of  the 
school  work  a  few  changes  have  been  made."  {Ibid., 
p.  58.) 


8o  Ella  Flagg  Young 

In  a  teachers'  meeting  in  Chicago  shortly  after  this, 
Mrs.  Young  stated  that — 

A  few  weeks  ago,  if  I  had  been  told  that  the  old-time  recita- 
tion in  history,  formal  question  and  memorized  answer,  was  still 
to  be  found  in  Chicago  schools,  I  would  have  resented  the 
slander.  But  I  can  not  deny  the  testimony  of  my  own  eyes 
and  ears.  Lately  I  have  actually  listened  to  recitations  of  just 
that  kind,  and  in  the  fifth,  and  sixth,  grade  rooms,  too,  where,  of 
all  places,  they  ought  not  to  be  found. 

The  failure  of  the  teaching  body  was  largely  due  to 
the  fact  that  conditions  and  demands  were  rapidly 
changing  and  the  teachers  were  not  forced  to  prepare 
for  the  new  work.  As  noted  in  the  last  chapter,  the 
ideal  of  educational  excellence  had  been  academic  and 
literary.  The  work  along  these  lines  had  been  empha- 
sized to  an  extent  that  had  shut  out  the  growing  no- 
tions of  science,  art,  and  construction.  While  the  course 
of  study  had  been  simplified,  and  language  and  litera- 
ture had  replaced,  in  large  measure,  the  dry-as-dust 
work  of  the  grades,  there  had  not  been  a  corresponding 
growth  of  knowledge  on  the  part  of  teachers  of  the  new 
demands  made  for  activities  as  parts  of  education. 

The  needs  for  improvement  were  so  urgent  that  in 
1893  ^  Teachers'  Training  Class  was  organized  and 
put  in  charge  of  two  instructors  who  gave  their  entire 
time  to  the  work  of  fitting  young  women  for  the  grades. 
In  the  "class,"  which  at  first  ran  for  only  half  a  year 
but  later  was  extended  to  a  whole  year's  work,  Mr. 
Rowland's  recommendation  that  assistant  superinten- 
dents be  required  to  lecture  to  the  young  teachers  on 
educational  principles  and  methods  was  at  last  put  into 
operation.    Here  Mrs.  Young  came  back  into  the  work 


School  Administration  from  1887  to   i8gg     81 

of  helping  to  prepare  teachers  for  the  schools  by  giv- 
ing lectures  on  psychology  and  education. 

The  consequences  of  poorly  trained  teachers  showed 
themselves  In  a  more  vital  way  in  changing  the  course 
of  study.  In  1893  there  began  a  strenuous  fight  in  and 
out  of  school  on  "  fads."  At  first  thought  this  fight  may 
seem  to  have  little  connection  with  increased  supervi- 
sion or  a  deteriorating  teaching  body,  but  as  a  matter 
of  fact  the  fight  is  a  logical  and  necessary  outcome  of 
both  problems.  Of  course  the  popular  cry  against 
*'  fads  "  usually  may  mean  anything  whatever,  but  back 
of  the  demands  at  that  time  for  a  return  to  simpler 
forms  of  instruction  there  lay  legitimate  grounds.  We 
have  already  noted  the  cry  set  up  for  "  shortening  and 
enriching  the  curriculum."  As  the  untrained  teachers 
became  less  and  less  competent  to  keep  up  with  the 
growing  demands  of  modern  practices,  there  came  to  be 
greater  dependence  upon  special  teachers  and  trained 
supervision.  We  have  already  seen  how  Mrs.  Young 
as  principal  had  fought  for  scholarship  and  freedom 
among  her  teachers.  She  felt  more  keenly  than  most 
leaders  of  the  period  this  tendency  of  the  schools  to 
depend  upon  the  specialists  for  the  new  subjects  that 
were  becoming  popular,  and  she  felt  that  the  welfare 
of  the  schools  depended  primarily  upon  the  intelligence 
and  independence  of  teachers,  and  therefore  devoted 
more  time  and  energy  to  this  problem  in  her  school 
than  to  all  others.  In  spite  of  the  work  of  Individual 
principals,  however,  the  special  teachers  became  promi- 
nent In  the  schools,  and  their  work  was  necessarily  em- 
phasized In  proportion  to  their  ability  to  present  It. 
Art,  music,  physical  culture,  German,  all  received  direct 


82  Ella  Flagg  Young 

attention  by  trained  specialists.  Mrs.  Young  stated 
this  point  in  connection  with  another  subject  in  an  ad- 
dress in  1899.     She  says: 

Have  you  ever  thought  of  the  difference  between  the  con- 
ditions surrounding  kindergartens,  manual-training  rooms,  and 
vacation  schools,  and  those  surrounding  the  regular  school- 
rooms? The  former  were  established  in  recognition  of  the 
failure  of  the  regular  school  to  meet  certain  needs.  If  they 
should  merely  duplicate  the  old,  the  very  reason  for  their  exis- 
tence would  proclaim  them  failures.  They  must  be,  not  varia- 
tions on  the  established  schools,  but  radically  different.  The 
more  innovations  they  introduce,  the  nearer  they  fulfil  their 
mission.  The  public  school,  on  the  other  hand,  is  bound  to  the 
past.  Back  of  it  are  thousands  of  parents,  demanding  that  their 
children  shall  give  evidence  from  day  to  day  that  they  are 
learning  what  their  parents  before  them  learned.  Back  of  it 
are  the  taxpayers,  feeling  the  burden  of  taxation  and  demand- 
ing that- the  simple,  inexpensive  curriculum  of  long  ago  be 
substituted  for  the  extravagant  course  of  study  of  today.  Back 
of  it  are  the  traditions  of  the  school,  which  made  its  life  some- 
thing distinct,  aloof  from  the  life  of  society.  In  this  environ- 
ment are  the  voices  calling  to  the  teaching  corps  to  act  as  the 
great  conservator  of  a  past  theory  of  culture. 

The  consequence  of  this  separation  of  the  newer  sub- 
jects under  specialists  as  supervisors  was  to  pull  them 
apart  and  leave  the  three  R's  behind,  losing  even  the 
strength  they  had  acquired  during  the  previous  period 
of  growth. 

And  then  the  fight  on  "fads"  broke  forth.  The 
school  report  for  1893  shows  the  effects  of  various 
criticisms  on  conditions  in  the  schools.  German  was 
eliminated  from  the  primary  grades.  Music  was  uni- 
fied by  the  adoption  of  a  graded  course  of  books,  and 
all  technical  study  of  the  subject  was  eliminated  from 
the  early  years  of  the  school.  Drawing,  likewise,  was 
curtailed  in  primary  grades,  and  clay-modeling,  pasting. 


School  Administration  from  i88y  to  i8gg     83 

and  paper-cutting  dropped.    The  president  of  the  board 
In  1894  says: 

The  warfare  against  "  fads  "  has  resulted  In  their  eh'mlnatlon 
from  our  schools.  No  longer  are  scholars  required  to  defile  their 
hands,  without  strengthening  their  intellects,  by  the  creation  of 
mud  pies  or  clay-modeling.  Paper-cutting  and  all  kindred 
innocuous,  time-consuming  fads  have,  with  their  authors,  disap- 
peared from  the  common-school  service  of  the  city.  Upon  the 
superintendent  and  his  assistants  there  should  be  lodged  no 
censure,  either  for  the  creation  or  maintenance  of  any  of  the 
fads  mentioned.  Their  paternity  Is  chargeable  to  a  few  mem- 
bers of  the  board  who  have  resigned  or  whose  terms  of  office 
have  expired,  and  whose  authority  was  more  potential  than  that 
asserted  by  the  superintendent  and  his  aids.  In  the  kindergarten 
department  clay  is  used  for  the  purpose  of  illustration  and  in 
object  studies,  and  its  use  there  Is  proper  for  the  reason  that  no 
books  whatever  are  used,  the  work  being  of  a  creative  and  con- 
structive nature.  The  horizon  of  drawing  has  been  circum- 
scribed and  within  the  limits  of  its  present  confinement  good 
results  have  been  obtained.  Considerable  money  has  been  saved 
to  the  school  service  by  reason  of  the  abatement  of  the  fads, 
and  is  now  being  used  in  teaching  the  children  things  which  will 
be  of  service  to  them  when  their  school  days  are  over,  and  when 
they  are  called  upon  to  earn  a  living.  {Report  of  Board  of  Edu- 
cation 1894.  P-  16.) 

All  her  experience  In  the  schools  of  Chicago  led 
Mrs.  Young  to  feel  the  need  of  well-trained  teachers. 
Conditions  as  she  found  them  In  her  wider  field  of 
supervision  convinced  her  that  the  most  important  work 
of  the  assistant  superintendent  was  in  helping  to  secure 
such  training.  We  find  most  of  her  energy  directed 
along  this  line  during  the  twelve  years  of  her  office  In 
the  schools.  First  of  all  she  took  up  the  work  opened 
by  the  new  Teachers'  Training  Class,  as  already  noted. 
On  every  occasion  she  talked  and  lectured  to  the  teach- 
ers on   the   desirability  of  better  preparation.     She 


84  Ella  Flagg  Young 

carried  along  the  club  organized  years  before  and 
increased  its  scope  by  other  efforts  at  improvement. 
The  institutes  which  had  been  a  part  of  the  system  of 
teacher  training  for  many  years  she  made  a  real  force 
in  thgt  service;  one  writer  says  they  were  enjoyed 
because  the  leader  herself  was  the  best  learner  in  attend- 
ance. Besides  her  own  efforts  in  the  monthly  meetings 
she  secured  the  best  available  talent  to  help  in  directing 
these  institutes.  William  James,  of  Harvard,  and 
John  Dewey,  of  The  University  of  Chicago,  both  came 
to  help  her.  That  she  succeeded  in  some  measure  in 
bringing  her  teachers  to  a  higher  level  of  appreciation 
for  their  work  is  evident  from  the  reports  coming  both 
from  individuals  and  official  sources.  James  said  at 
the  time  of  one  of  his  lectures  before  the  teachers: 

I  came  expecting  to  find  bare  walls,  and  I  find  pictures  and 
statuary  adorning  the  school  rooms.  I  came  expecting  to  talk 
to  an  audience  untrained  to  think  in  abstract  terms  and  I  was 
compelled  to  reconstruct  my  entire  series  of  lectures  to  meet  the 
demands  of  the  teachers. 

In  her  efforts  to  improve  the  teaching  force,  Mrs. 
Young  resorted  to  her  practices  as  principal  of  going 
about  hunting  for  good  teaching  and  commending  every 
evidence  of  independent  work  or  conscientious  en- 
deavor. Wherever  she  found  work  that  was  unsatis- 
factory she  did  not  hesitate  to  condemn  in  no  uncertain 
terms.  The  careless,  slipshod  shirker  found  little  sat- 
isfaction in  Mrs.  Young's  visits  to  her  room.  In  all  of 
her  supervision  she  was  fair  and  honest,  praising  effort 
but  condemning  lack  of  effort. 

That  the  task  of  raising  the  standard  of  teaching  In 
a  large  city  was  a  difficult  one,  Mrs.  Young  appreciated 


School  Administration  from  i88y  to   i8gg     85 

fully.  She  gave  herself  without  reserve  to  the  work 
and  met  with  a  large  measure  of  success.  But  such  an 
undertaking  under  the  conditions  of  the  professional 
standing  of  teachers  at  the  beginning  of  her  work  was 
sure  to  bring  with  it  opposition  and  criticism.  Her 
experience  was  not  an  exception  to  this  rule.  She  was 
called  hard,  cold,  severe,  mannish,  without  sympathy, 
and  in  general,  very  critical.  Even  her  enemies,  how- 
ever, acknowledged  her  power  and  fitness  for  the  posi- 
tion she  held.  Her  decided  views  and  her  positive 
statement  of  her  judgments  without  any  preliminary 
apology  may  have  led  often  to  such  opinion  of  her 
character.  Usually  those  who  occupied  the  unenviable 
position  of  "  time-servers  "  were  the  persons  who  found 
her  "hard  and  unsympathetic." 

On  the  other  hand,  her  quick  appreciation  of  the 
right  spirit  in  a  teacher  was  her  power  to  win  and  hold 
the  great  mass  of  the  teaching  body.  She  was  popular 
with  the  children  as  well  as  teachers.  As  a  lecturer, 
she  had  a  large  following,  "Her  lectures  are  largely 
attended,  not  from  duty,  but  from  pleasure.  She  Is  a 
fascinating  speaker,  knows  her  subject  thoroughly,  and 
always  gives  us  something  to  carry  away."  These 
words  were  spoken  by  one  of  her  adverse  critics.  An- 
other writer  says,  regarding  a  sense  of  humor,  "That 
is  one  of  the  reasons  we  all  flock  to  hear  Mrs.  Young, 
and  sit  on  the  steps  of  the  hall  for  an  hour  to  be  sure  to 
get  a  seat."  {School  Journal,  October  22,  1898.)  In 
another  place  in  this  article  the  writer  says: 

Mrs.  Young  has  been  appointed  supervisor  of  the  domestic 
arts,  and  we  are  beginning  to  think  she  is  being  imposed  upon. 
She  is  so  capable,  so  willing,  and  everything  she  undertakes  is  so 


86  Ella  Flagg  Young 

well  done  that  it  would  surprise  nobody  if  she  were  appointed 
head  of  manual  training  and  gave  a  practical  demonstration  of 
the  way  to  make  a  chair.  She  is  an  inspiration  to  the  teachers 
who  feel  themselves  incompetent  to  manage  household  affairs 
owing  to  their  exclusive  attention  to  intellectual  work. 

Her  work  and  attitude  endeared  her  to  the  great 
mass  of  teachers  in  the  system. 

Next  in  importance  in  improving  the  schools  to  that 
of  raising  the  standards  of  teachers,  Mrs.  Young  held 
that  a  broad,  flexible  curriculum  was  essential.  In  this 
work  she  insisted  on  the  necessity  of  greater  power  and 
intelligence  on  the  part  of  teachers.  She  had  decided 
ideas  on  the  rigid  gradation  with  hard-and-fast  lines  in 
the  promotion  of  children.  She  took  every  occasion  to 
change  this  system  in  her  own  district.  Many  of  her 
early  addresses  before  the  teachers  were  on  some  phase 
of  the  inflexible  course  of  study  and  how  it  could  be 
remedied.  A  brief  resume  of  one  or  two  of  these 
addresses  will  show  how  strenuously  she  labored  to 
secure  greater  freedom  in  the  course  of  study  for  the 
grades. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A   CLASH   OF   IDEALS   IN  SCHOOL  GOVERNMENT 

IV/T RS.  YOUNG'S  growth  from  a  narrow,  academic- 
^^■*-  bound  vision  in  her  earher  career  to  that  of  a 
broad-minded  believer  in  all  forms  of  education  was 
completed  during  her  period  in  the  superintendency. 
The  evolution  of  a  great  mind  follows  the  flow  of  life 
in  the  world  at  large,  or  rather  epitomizes  the  inter- 
ests of  the  age.  Educationally,  the  world  had  for  more 
than  a  third  of  a  century  been  moving  away  from  classi- 
cal and  literary  ideals  and  towards  scientific  and  in- 
dustrial culture.  Great  leaders  were  imbued  with  this 
vision  of  a  new  day  for  the  training  of  the  young,  but, 
as  yet,  only  the  faintest  impressions  of  it  had  been  con- 
veyed to  the  rank  and  file  of  teachers  and  superintend- 
ents throughout  the  country.  Mrs.  Young's  grasp  of 
this  movement  and  her  efforts  to  set  it  in  concrete  form 
before  her  teachers  show  her  as  one  of  the  coming 
leaders  of  the  period.  Briefly  summarized,  her  in- 
terests and  activities  in  this  direction  indicate  the  trend 
of  modern  education  for  that  time. 

In  a  previous  chapter,  Mrs.  Young's  interest  in  liter- 
ature for  the  elementary  schools  has  been  noted.  A 
further  discussion  of  her  position  is  necessary  to  show 
her  growth  in  the  grasp  of  the  subject  over  her  earlier 
viewpoint.  Brief  extracts  from  her  paper  delivered 
before  the  National  Education  Association  in  1896  will 
suffice  to  illustrate  her  conception  of  the  subject. 

87 


88  Ella  Flagg  Young 

Although  the  young  are  still  given  the  ordinary  in  both 
thought  and  expression  with  which  to  acquire  the  so-called  me- 
chanics of  reading,  yet  the  teachers  are  few  who  have  the 
hardihood  in  theory  to  restrict  those  little  ones  to  a  diet  of  the 
commonplace.  .  .  .  Though  the  schools  are  moving  slowly, 
often  halting  on  the  way,  hindered  here  by  deplorable  theories 
based  on  custom,  weakened  there  by  the  cause  of  nature  stories 
and  adaptations  of  the  classics  written  by  the  non-literary,  yet, 
thanks  to  those  who  have  blazed  the  way  to  a  broader  and 
higher  view,  no  time  need  now  be  spent  in  presenting  the  claims 
of  literature  as  an  element  in  child  life.  ...  A  prescribed 
course  in  literature  is  not  necessarily  arranged  with  an  eye  single 
to  a  logical  sequence  of  subjects  or  to  culture-epochs.  It  may  be 
planned  with  but  one  object  in  view,  that  of  making  the  best 
a  definite  and  developing  part  of  the  curriculum.  It  may  con- 
sist of  such  prose  and  poetical,  such  descriptive  and  dramatic 
works  that  one  in  whom  are  combined  literary  tastes  and  a  deep 
sympathy  with  child  life  can  find  no  adverse  opinion  to  pass 
upon  it. 

She  then  shows  how  a  hard-and-fast  course  of  study 
may  defeat  this  object. 

Literature  reveals  the  possibilities  of  the  human  soul.  Run- 
ning through  every  literary  production  is  some  one  of  the 
fundamental  principles  underlying  the  higher  life,  and  this 
principle  woven  into  the  warp  and  woof  of  the  narration,  the 
novel,  the  poem,  the  myth,  the  drama,  suggests  to  the  reader 
something  farther  and  higher  reaching  than  the  soul  itself  has 
yet  attained.  In  all  this  there  is  an  appeal  to  the  nobler  self. 
It  makes  that  self  realize  its  personal,  its  individual  responsi- 
bilities. By  putting  a  prescribed  course  into  the  hands  of  the 
teacher,  this  permanent  element,  the  arousing  of  the  sense  of  re- 
sponsibility through  a  selecting  activity,  is  ignored.  The  book, 
the  essay,  the  poem,  may  be  appreciated,  but  the  teacher  goes 
to  the  class  as  the  bearer  of  another's  choice ;  as  an  inferior  acting 
for  a  superior;  not  as  one  who,  having  found  a  joy,  a  life-giving 
thought,  must  share  it  with  the  children.  .  .  .  The  necessity  for 
courses  of  study  in  some  subjects  has  been  conceded  in  this 
paper;  yet,  today,  that  necessity  demands  not  half  so  much 
attention  from  those  who  are  close  to  the  elementary  schools, 


A   Clash  of  Ideals  89 

as  do  the  narrowing  and  benumbing  influences  of  minute  details 
in  those  outlines.  .  .  .  Loud  are  the  complaints  made  by  the 
secondary  schools,  colleges,  and  universities,  to  the  effect  that 
students  come  to  them  weak  in  spelling,  weaker  in  punctuation, 
and  weakest  of  all  in  their  use  of  the  mother  tongue.  So  faint 
of  heart  are  we  as  to  the  propriety  of  admitting  the  interesting 
and  the  beautiful  into  our  schoolrooms  that  the  first  breath  of 
adverse  criticism  makes  us  disown  them  as  interlopers.  The 
complaints,  coming  at  a  time  when  faith  in  literature  in  the 
schools  is  just  beginning  to  germinate,  tend  to  weaken  that  faith, 
and  to  concentrate  attention  on  the  form  side  of  language,  before 
its  use  and  power  as  an  instrument  for  the  expression  of  thought 
have  been  felt.  .  .  .  The  spelling,  the  punctuation,  and  more 
than  these,  the  diction  of  the  young  should  be  improved,  but  in 
the  right  way.  Spelling,  punctuation,  forms  of  words,  choice 
of  words,  construction  of  sentences,  all  may  be  grouped  under 
the  head  of  the  technique  of  language.  The  same  law  holds 
here  that  prevails  in  other  subjects.  Empty  forms  will  not  gen- 
erate content.  The  resurrection  of  the  meaningless  or  stilted 
sentence  set  for  spelling  and  punctuation,  or  paraphrases  that 
kill  the  thought  and  imagery  of  the  original,  and  retain  the 
phrases  and  clauses  arranged  in  reverse  order,  will  not  develop 
beauty  and  vigor  of  thought  and  expression.  The  seeds  of 
thought  must  be  implanted  in  the  young  minds  and  then  the 
technique  be  developed  out  of  the  resulting  imagery  and  reflec- 
tion. {Proceedings  of  the  National  Education  Association, 
1896,  pp.  111-117.) 

On  another  occasion  she  raises  the  problem  of  read- 
ing and  literature  and,  as  she  had  done  in  the  Skin- 
ner School,  deplores  the  dry  and  mechanical  reading  of 
the  elementary  school,  demanding  good  results  by  Intro- 
ducing children  as  soon  as  possible  to  the  best  in  liter- 
ature. "Having  acquired  power  In  translating  the 
printed  symbol  Into  the  spoken  word,  a  child  should  not 
have  reading  and  literature  as  distinct  exercises."  Com- 
menting on  the  recommendation  of  the  *'  Committee  of 
Fifteen,"  which  enunciated  the  doctrine  that  three  years 


90  Ella  Flagg  Young 

of  a  child's  life  should  be  occupied  In  mastering  a 
printed  and  written  vocabulary,  Mrs.  Young  insists 
that  children  can  be  taught  so  as  to  get  thought  from 
their  reading  from  the  first  day.  Learning  to  read  thus 
becomes  an  intelligent  process  and  not  a  drill  in  symbol 
learning.  She  insisted  on  the  child  being  allowed  to  put 
his  own  interpretation  on  his  reading.  Because  of  her 
wish  to  make  reading  intelligent  and  an  organic  part  of 
other  studies,  she  championed,  on  all  occasions,  an 
open  list  of  books  for  reading  and  history  so  that  chil- 
dren could  have  opportunities  to  weigh  various  points 
of  view. 

The  subject  of  teaching  reading  Is  discussed  again  in 
1899  in  her  address.  The  Outlook  for  the  Schools  of 
Chicago,  published  in  the  School  Weekly.  She  criticizes 
the  report  of  the  "  Committee  of  Fifteen  "  with  refer- 
ence to  its  recommendation  on  reading,  saying: 

In  it  was  enunciated  the  doctrine  that  three  years  of  a  child's 
life,  beginning  at  the  age  of  six  years,  must  be  occupied  mainly 
with  acquiring  the  mastery  of  the  printed  and  written  forms  of 
his  colloquial  vocabulary.  It  is  true  that  in  some  schools  of 
Chicago  the  method  of  reading  is  an  endorsement  of  the  com- 
mittee. It  is  also  true  that  in  some  schools  reading  as  an  exer- 
cise for  the  mastery  of  the  forms  of  familiar  words  has  been 
superseded  by  reading  as  an  exercise  for  getting  at  thought 
through  the  mastery  of  the  forms  of  the  words  in  which  the 
thought  was  expressed.  In  these  schools  the  first  word  or  sen- 
tence read  is  read  in  order  to  get  at  the  thought  expressed  by  it. 
To  see  a  class  of  children  from  non-English  speaking  homes 
three  months  after  beginning  to  learn  to  read  take  each  a  piece 
of  paper  fresh  from  the  press  on  which  the  teacher  has  printed  a 
series  of  different  things  to  be  done,  look  them  through  intently 
and  then  carefully  obey  the  printed  instructions,  is  to  know  what 
is  meant  by  the  theory  of  reading  that  has  distanced  the  theory 
of  the  famous  Committee  of  Fifteen. 


A  Clash  of  Ideals  9 1 

In  season  and  out,  Mrs.  Young  advocated  manual 
arts  and  drawing.  During  this  period  a  few  elemen- 
tary schools  of  the  city  were  fitted  out  with  complete 
equipment  for  manual  training,  at  first  furnished  by 
private  funds  but  later  by  the  board.  Work  of  this 
nature  she  considered  opened  up  new  avenues  for 
expression  and  creation  by  growing  minds.  In  an  ad- 
dress before  the  Teachers'  Club  and  Ella  F.  Young 
Club,  February  12,  1898,  she  said: 

Drawing  has  given  the  children  more  means  to  express  them- 
selves. Scissors,  blocks,  and  various  implements  have  released 
the  little  hands  from  the  slate  and  pencil,  which  Mr.  Rowland 
called  "  the  modern  pillory  and  thumbscrew."  The  aim  of 
manual  training  is  not  to  drive  boys  to  trades,  and  keep  them 
away  from  the  overcrowded  professions,  but  to  increase  the 
value  of  their  work  in  every  department.  Girls  are  not  taught 
the  domestic  arts  in  the  public  school  to  train  them  for  servants, 
but  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  them  the  values  of  foods  and 
hygiene. 

With  the  growth  of  interest  in  nature  study,  Mrs. 
Young  had  kept  pace,  and  had  always  been  an  advocate 
of  the  subject.  The  old  object-lesson  had  appealed  to 
her  at  the  beginning,  but  that  had  degenerated  into  lan- 
guage lessons  and  on  the  object  side  into  what  she  called 
"bottled  science."  Upon  the  establishment  of  the 
teachers'  training  class  in  1893,  Mrs.  Young  was  influ- 
ential in  securing  a  science  teacher  from  the  high  school 
as  one  of  the  two  directors  of  the  work  of  preparing 
teachers.  She  had  seen  that  the  failure  of  the  old 
object  lessons  and  all  other  attempts  to  introduce  nature 
study  and  science  into  the  elementary  schools  had  been 
due  to  the  lack  of  intelligence  in  the  matter  on  the  part 
of  teachers  and  principals  as  to  the  ends  to  be  accom- 


92  Ella  Flagg  Young 

plished  by  these  subjects  and  the  resulting  tendency  to 
mechanize  them. 

In  her  emphasis  upon  these  subjects,  Mrs.  Young 
did  not  lose  sight  of  the  academic  branches,  the  tradi- 
tional three  R's.  Arithmetic  was  shortened  at  both 
ends  of  the  course  of  study  during  this  period,  and  the 
recommendations  of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  pre- 
vailed in  some  respects  as  to  the  material  of  the  course. 
Algebra  and  concrete  geometry  were  introduced  into 
the  seventh  and  eighth  grades,  and  Mrs.  Young  advo- 
cated the  reduction  in  the  number  of  examples  which 
children  were  required  to  solve.  The  craze  for  vertical 
writing  was  not  shared  by  her  because,  as  we  have 
already  pointed  out,  she  had  developed  a  most  pro- 
ficient system  of  free  movement  in  penmanship  in  her 
own  school,  so  that  this  idea  seemed  wholly  unneces- 
sary. But  in  spite  of  reluctance  to  admit  the  value  of 
vertical  penmanship,  she  saw  in  it  a  breaking  up  of  the 
previous  burden  of  written  work  required  of  children. 

Mrs.  Young's  work  as  assistant  superintendent 
brought  her  into  contact  with  all  classes  of  schools  and 
children.  In  one  school,  made  up  of  the  foreign  and 
poor,  located  in  the  midst  of  the  Chicago  "vice  dis- 
trict," she  found  the  greatest  need  was  for  bodily 
cleanliness.  Here,  In  spite  of  opposition  on  the  part  of 
board  members  to  schools  assuming  the  functions  of 
the  home,  was  established  the  first  school  bath  in  the 
city.  Many  children  at  this  period  spent  four  and  five 
years  In  the  early  grades  of  the  schools  without  even 
learning  to  read.  In  rooms  where  such  things  occurred 
teachers  were  trying  to  handle  sixty  and  seventy  chil- 
dren.   The  board  tried  the  plan  of  raising  salaries  of 


A  Clash  of  Ideals  93 

the  primary  grades  to  a  level  with  the  grammar  grades 
in  order  to  secure  teachers  able  to  deal  with  these  large 
numbers,  but  this  was  a  failure  in  more  directions  than 
that  of  primary  grade  work.  One  of  the  first  remedies 
which  Mrs.  Young  applied  to  the  situation  was  to 
reduce  the  seating  capacity  of  the  rooms.  On  the  West 
Side,  where  she  first  went  as  assistant  superintendent, 
she  had  all  but  fifty-four  seats  taken  from  the  primary 
rooms.  The  story  is  told  of  the  attempt  of  one  of  the 
principals  to  return  the  seventy  seats  to  his  rooms  as 
soon  as  it  was  known  that  Mrs.  Young  was  to  be  trans- 
ferred to  a  district  on  the  South  Side,  but  his  order  was 
never  executed. 

Through  all  of  her  active  work  as  a  teacher  and 
administrator  to  the  close  of  her  work  as  assistant 
superintendent  in  1899,  Mrs.  Young  had  been  officially 
connected  with  the  public  schools  of  the  city.  In  the 
meantime,  however,  her  mind  had  been  employed  on 
the  current  problems  of  education  of  the  world  outside 
of  Chicago.  She  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  men 
and  women  of  America  and  Europe  and  had  been 
studying  her  work  in  the  light  of  their  influence.  It  is 
not  strange,  therefore,  that  "down  state"  she  became 
an  active  factor  in  education.  In  1889  the  Governor 
appointed  her  a  member  of  the  State  Board  of  Edu- 
cation, a  position  she  held  for  twenty  years,  being 
reappointed  each  time  until  she  became  so  deeply  en- 
grossed in  Chicago  schools  that  she  had  to  give  it  up. 
While  a  member  of  the  body,  she  was  continuously  on 
the  Committee  on  Course  of  Study,  and  for  most  of  the 
time  on  that  of  teachers.  As  we  have  seen  in  connec- 
tion with  Chicago  schools,  her  deepest  interests  were 


94  E.lla  Flagg  Young 

in  these  two  problems.  A  prominent  man  of  the  state 
said  of  her  work  on  the  state  board  that  she  was  the 
"best  man  on  the  board." 

But  her  influence  was  not  confined  to  an  official  posi- 
tion on  a  board  of  education.  She  became  prominent 
in  the  club  known  as  the  "School-Mistresses'  Club." 
Political  interests  of  some  of  the  women  of  the  state 
led  them  to  attempt  to  establish  a  separate  association 
for  women.  In  1888  Mrs.  Young  was  invited  to  pre- 
pare a  paper  on  the  aims  of  the  club.  She  took  a  stand 
against  the  separate  association,  but  was  strongly  in 
favor  of  a  club  for  the  educational  and  humanitarian 
advancement  of  its  members.  As  Miss  J.  Rose  Colby, 
a  member  of  this  club,  writes, 

Her  influence  carried  the  day.  The  School  Mistresses*  Club 
has  had  a  long  and  useful  existence.  I  have  more  than  once 
heard  Mrs.  Young  say  that  its  meetings  and  its  work  were  the 
most  valuable  meetings  and  work  she  had  ever  shared.  She  was 
president  of  the  club  for  as  many  years  as  we  could  win  or  force 
her  consent  to  hold  that  office.  As  leader  she  did  for  us  what 
she  has  everywhere  done  as  leader  —  she  stimulated  us  to  many- 
sided  reading  and  growth,  to  a  greater  intellectual  curiosity, 
and  a  new  sense  of  the  significance  of  intellectual  life.  More 
than  anyone  else  I  have  ever  known  she  had  and  has  the  power 
of  a  great  leader  —  if  she  asked  any  woman  of  us  to  do  any- 
thing, we  wanted  to  do  it,  and  even  though  we  doubted  our  own 
powers,  she  managed  to  give  the  doubter  courage.  More  than 
one  undeveloped  and  possibly  crude  woman  grew  visibly  from 
year  to  year  in  the  work.  And  the  spirit  of  good  fellowship 
and  comradeship  that  grew  up  in  the  club  I  have  never  seen 
equaled  in  any  other  organization,  whether  of  women  alone  or 
of  men  and  women,  that  I  have  been  connected  with. 

Mrs.  Young  for  many  years  was  a  prominent  figure 
in  county  institutes  of  the  states,  where  she  was  unusu- 
ally successful.    One  of  the  teachers  from  Peoria  who 


A  Clash  of  Ideals  95 

attended  many  of  her  institutes  says  of  her  that  **  she 
has  few  equals  in  her  power  to  inspire  teachers  to 
make  more  of  themselves  and  live  up  to  the  best  that 
is  in  them."  While  still  in  the  office  of  assistant  super- 
intendent, Mrs.  Young's  reputation  among  educators 
became  national.  She  became  a  prominent  figure  in 
the  National  Education  Association,  on  the  programs 
of  which  she  frequently  appeared. 

Chicago  schools  have  never  been  completely  free 
from  some  more  or  less  active  political  influence.  In 
the  nature  of  the  organization  of  the  schools  they  lend 
themselves  to  power-seeking  interests.  Such  was  the 
case  in  1897  when  business  interests  made  demands  for 
better  and  more  efficient  organization  in  schools.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  management  had  not  previously 
been  effective  in  many  respects.  The  superintendent's 
power  was  not  great,  and  methods  of  administration 
were  not  modern.  In  compliance  with  the  demands  of 
the  time,  the  Board  of  Education  was  reorganized.  An 
educational  commission  was  appointed  of  which  W.  R. 
Harper,  president  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  be- 
came head.  This  commission  reported  in  favor  of 
more  centralized  administration  and  more  effective 
business  management  and  drafted  a  bill  for  a  law  to 
make  its  recommendations  effective.  This  bill  became 
a  law.  Over  its  provisions  the  most  bitter  fight  waged, 
and  charges  of  all  kinds  were  made  against  the  inter- 
ests back  of  the  commissions  and  the  law.  It  was  said 
to  have  been  another  attempt  of  big  interests  to  use 
the  public  schools  in  their  own  behalf. 

In  reorganization  the  board  selected  a  man  from  the 
outside  for  superintendent,  a  man  of  wide  experience 


g6  Ella  Flagg  Young 

as  an  administrator,  and  one  who  was  thought  capable 
of  introducing  modern  business  methods  into  the 
schools.  When  it  is  remembered  that  "home  talent" 
had  been  employed  in  the  superintendency  for  many 
years,  first  in  the  person  of  a  former  high-school  prin- 
cipal, and  later  in  that  of  a  Cook  County  superintend- 
ent, it  was  evident  that  an  outsider  might  find  difficulties 
in  entering  upon  the  position.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
new  superintendent  was  never  able  to  get  the  schools 
into  his  hands.  On  the  one  hand,  he  was  too  demo- 
cratic for  the  "forces"  employing  him,  and  on  the 
other,  teachers  distrusted  his  power.  He  was  a  misfit 
from  the  first.  While  many  of  the  measures  which  he 
introduced  and  fought  for  were  later  accepted  and 
became  parts  of  the  administrative  machinery,  he  him- 
self was  unable  to  put  them  into  operation. 

But  teachers  were  opposed  to  his  ideals  of  centrali- 
zation. At  once  Mrs.  Young  championed  the  cause  of 
the  teachers  and  democracy  as  opposed  to  methods 
which  administered  schools  from  the  top,  regardless 
of  ideas  of  the  teachers.  She  refused  to  work  under 
a  regime  which  reduced  school  work  to  the  lines  of  a 
business  corporation  and  made  mere  tools  and  clerks  of 
teachers  and  principals  and  assistant  superintendents. 
Her  resignation  was  abrupt  but  fully  thought  out. 
Newspapers  were  filled  with  the  controversy  because 
the  matter  was  thought  to  involve  a  vital  issue  in  public- 
school  government.  The  following  letters  were  incor- 
porated in  the  annual  report  of  the  board,  and  show  the 
kind  of  fight  Mrs.  Young  put  up  for  the  freedom  of 
teachers  and  their  independent  cooperation  in  the 
management  of  schools. 


A  Clash  of  Ideals  97 

In  regard  to  the  letter,  the  president  of  the  board 

wrote : 

Mrs.  Ella  F.  Young  severed  her  connection  with  the  Chicago 
Public  Schools  after  a  service  covering  a  period  of  twenty-five 
years.  Her  reasons  therefor  appear  in  the  following  letters 
which  I  received  from  her  and  which  were  made  public  at  the 
time.  They  appear  on  page  654,  Proceedings  of  the  Board  of 
Education  of  June  14,  1899. 

Chicago,  June  3,  1899- 
Graham  H.  Harris,  President  of  the  Board  of  Education'. 

Dear  Sir  —  It  is  my  intention  to  sever  my  connection  with 
the  public  schools  of  Chicago  at  the  close  of  the  current  school 
month. 

The  Board  of  Education  has  undergone  many  changes  since  I 
entered  its  service,  yet  it  has  ever  generously  recognized  what- 
ever of  merit  has  been  in  my  work.  I  take  this  opportunity  to 
make  acknowledgment  of  the  courtesy  and  encouragement 
extended  me  by  the  Board. 

Respectfully  yours, 

Ella  F.  Young, 
District  Superintendent  of  Schools. 

Chicago,  June  13,  1899. 
Graham  H.  Harris,  President  of  the  Board  of  Education: 

Dear  Sir — The  announcement  in  the  daily  papers  regarding 
meetings  to  be  held  Saturday,  June  loth,  by  the  Teachers' 
Federation  and  the  Teachers'  Club,  necessitated  a  statement 
from  me  concerning  my  future  in  the  schools.  My  information 
was  received  so  late,  June  9th,  that  it  was  impossible  for  me 
to  write  you  before  writing  to  the  teachers. 

I  beg  pardon  for  sending  you  a  clipping  from  the  newspaper 
as  a  statement  of  my  conclusions,  but  I  can  add  nothing  thereto, 
and  the  clipping  is  a  correct  copy  of  my  letter. 

Thanking  you  for  your  personal,  as  well  as  official,  courtesy 
to  me,  I  am 

Very  truly  yours, 

Ella  F.  Young. 


98  Ella  Flagg  Young 

Miss  Goggin,  President  of  the  Chicago  Teachers*  Federation; 

and    Miss    Mary    E.    Lynch,    President    of    the    Chicago 

Teachers'  Club: 

I  have  learned  through  the  city  press  that  the  Federation  and 
the  Teachers'  Club  will  meet  Saturday,  June  10,  to  prepare  a 
petition  to  the  Board  of  Education  in  relation  to  my  resignation. 
While  warmly  appreciating  the  friendly  attitude  which  leads 
some  of  the  teachers  to  take  such  action,  I  owe  it  to  them, 
because  of  their  confidence  in  me,  to  declare  my  position. 

As  you  well  know,  I  hold  positive  views  regarding  official 
courtesy  and  official  discipline.  Only  after  careful  considera- 
tion of  all  the  conditions  did  I  take  this  important  step.  To 
withdraw  my  resignation  would  imply  either  that  the  conditions 
had  not  been  duly  considered  by  me  or  that  the  conditions  had 
been  changed.    Neither  of  these  implications  is  true. 

Let  me  present  the  subject  in  another  light.  When  a  sub- 
ordinate in  interviews,  which  she  knows  will  be  published  in  the 
daily  papers,  expresses  herself  as  being  in  disaccord  profession- 
ally with  her  superior  in  office,  the  relations  of  the  subordinate 
and  chief  should  be  severed.  Under  the  circumstances  it  would 
not  be  in  accord  with  my  theories  of  discipline  for  me  to  con- 
tinue as  a  district  superintendent. 

Promotion  in  the  Chicago  public  schools  is  made  impossible 
for  me  by  the  events  of  the  past  week,  not  because  of  inability 
on  my  part  to  meet  heavy  responsibilities,  but  because  my  resig- 
nation and  the  published  interviews  would  furnish  ground  for  a 
misunderstanding  as  to  my  motives  in  resigning. 

You  are  sufficiently  familiar  with  my  methods  of  speech  to 
know  that  when  I  state  I  had  absolutely  no  new  position  under 
consideration  at  the  time  of  notifying  the  President  of  the  Board 
of  my  intention  to  leave  the  schools,  the  statement  means , 
exactly  what  appears  on  its  face.  Equally  clear  and  direct  is  my 
statement  that  I  intend  entering  into  the  duties  of  another  edu- 
cational position  when  a  satisfactory  one  shall  present  itself. 

That  no  doubt  shall  exist  as  to  my  attitude,  the  above  is 
summed  up  as  follows:  First,  I  cannot  withdraw  my  resigna- 
tion; second,  I  cannot  continue  to  serve  as  a  member  of  the 
teaching  corps  of  the  public  schools  of  Chicago. 

With  earnest  wishes  for  the  welfare  of  the  schools  and  the 
teachers  of  Chicago,  I  am   yours  very  truly, 

Ella  F.  Young. 


A  Clash  of  Ideals  99 

The  superintendent  under  whom  she  refused  to  work 
reported  in  this  connection  as  follows : 

By  declining  re-election  for  another  year  Mrs.  Ella  F.  Young 
has  severed  her  connection  with  the  public  school  system  of 
Chicago.  Mrs.  Young  is  a  woman  of  rare  talent,  untiring 
energy,  large  acquirements  and  ripe  educational  experience, 
who  has  deservedly  won  a  host  of  admiring  and  devoted  friends. 
As  teacher,  principal,  and  superintendent  she  has  served  the 
city  for  thirty-seven  years.  I  deeply  regret  her  withdrawal  from 
the  position  she  has  so  ably  filled,  yet  congratulate  the  educa- 
tional public  on  the  promise  that  her  professional  labors,  though 
in  another  field,  will  still  be  continued.  {Report  of  Board  of 
Education,  1899,  p.  119.) 

A  petition  signed  by  thousands  of  teachers  and  school 
patrons  was  sent  to  the  board  at  the  time  Mrs.  Young 
resigned.  The  petition  was  addressed  to  the  working- 
men  of  the  city  and  was  headed  by  a  statement  of  the 
reasons  why  the  petition  should  be  signed.  In  part  it 
said: 

In  order  that  the  citizens  of  Chicago  may  understand  Mrs. 
Young's  reason  for  resigning,  it  is  necessary  to  state  that  she 
has  been  deprived  of  the  educational  influence  which  she  had 
exerted  under  former  school  administrations.  Mrs.  Young  is  a 
graduate  of  the  Chicago  public  schools  and  has  filled  with  honor 
and  ability  every  place  in  the  school  system  from  the  lowest  to 
the  highest,  and  her  work  has  contributed  in  a  large  degree  to 
the  excellent  reputation  which  our  public  schools  enjoy  among 
the  cities  of  the  Union.  She  has  a  national  reputation  as  an 
educator  and  has  the  faculty  of  inspiring  with  the  highest  ideas 
of  manhood  and  womanhood  every  teacher  and  pupil  who  comes 
within  the  sphere  of  her  influence.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Young  has  taken 
this  noble  and  courageous  course  in  order  to  place  the  matter  in 
its  true  light,  and  also  to  impress  on  the  minds  of  the  citizens 
of  Chicago  the  danger  that  lurks  in  the  present  movement  of 
Mr.  Andrews. 


100  Ella  Flagg  Young 

This  petition  bore  no  fruit  so  far  as  recalling  Mrs. 
Young  to  the  position  she  had  left.  Once  her  mind  was 
made  up  in  matters  of  this  kind  it  could  not  easily  be 
changed. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HIGHER  EDUCATION  FOR  A  WOMAN  PAST  FIFTY 

TN  1904  the  late  William  James  wrote:  "Chicago 
"'■  has  a  School  of  Thought!  —  a  school  of  thought 
which,  it  is  safe  to  predict,  will  figure  In  literature  as 
the  school  of  Chicago  for  twenty-five  years  to  come." 
Mr.  James  characterized  the  philosophical  work  of  Mr. 
Dewey  and  his  co-workers  in  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago as  an  "evolutionism,"  as  an  "empiricism." 

Taking  it  en  pros,  what  strikes  me  most  in  it  is  the  great 
sense  of  concrete  reality  with  which  it  is  filled.  It  seems  a 
promising  via  media  between  the  empiricist  and  transcendentalist 
tendencies  of  our  time.  Like  empiricism,  it  is  individualistic  and 
phenomenalistic ;  it  places  truth  in  rebus,  and  not  ante  rem.  It 
resembles  transcendentalism,  on  the  other  hand,  in  making  value' 
and  fact  inseparable,  and  in  standing  for  continuities  and  pur- 
poses in  things.  It  employs  the  genetic  method  to  which  both 
schools  are  now  accustomed.  It  coincides  remarkably  with  the 
simultaneous  movement  in  favor  of  "  pragmatism  "  or  "  human- 
ism "  set  up  quite  independently  at  Oxford  by  Messrs.  Schiller 
and  Sturt.  It  probably  has  a  great  future,  and  is  certainly  some- 
thing of  which  America  may  be  proud.  (Psychological  Bul- 
letin,  I,  i,  January  15,  1904.) 

One  of  Mr.  Dewey's  associates  at  the  time  of  this 
statement  was  Mrs.  Young.  She  became  a  member  of 
the  department  after  leaving  the  assistant  superlntend- 
ency  in  1899,  and  remained  a  part  of  the  faculty  until 
her  resignation  In  1904,  when  Mr.  Dewey  left  the 
University.  On  the  side  of  the  application  of  this 
"school  of  thought"  to  the  problems  of  education  she 
had  a  large  part. 

lOI 


102  Ella  Flagg  Young 

Long  before  Mrs.  Young  left  the  public  schools  she 
had  interested  herself  in  the  work  of  the  University. 
Her  first  connection  with  it  was  to  enter  a  seminar  in 
1895  conducted  by  Mr.  Dewey.  At  that  time  she  was 
fifty  years  of  age.  She  tells  this  interesting  incident  of 
her  entrance  of  this  work,  saying  it  shows  how  small 
are  some  of  the  things  of  life  that  decide  one's  course. 
When  she  entered  the  hall  where  registration  for  the 
opening  of  the  year  was  taking  place  she  was  met  by 
the  hum  of  voices  and  the  bustle  of  figures  of  young 
women  and  men  intent  upon  entrance  routine. 

I  was  told  that  in  order  to  enter  Mr.  Dewey's  course  I  should 
have  to  present  a  permit  signed  by  him.  I  looked  up  the  long 
flight  of  stairs  of  Cobb  Hall  and  watched  the  eager  faces  of  the 
young  people  and  decided  that  it  was  a  plac**  for  young  people 
and  that  I  should  not  take  up  the  work.  As  I  turned  to  leave, 
some  young  man  who  knew  me  by  appearance  stepped  up  and 
ofEered  to  go  up  stairs  to  Mr.  Dewey  and  get  his  signature  for 
me.  So  that's  the  way  I  happened  to  enter  the  University  of 
Chicago. 

She  continued  in  this  afternoon  seminar  for  four 
years,  studying  logic,  ethics,  metaphysics,  and  Hegel's 
philosophy.  During  this  period  she  had  opportunity 
to  work  out  the  application  of  the  philosophical  theo- 
ries as  she  studied  them  in  her  supervision  of  schools.* 

•One  of  the  members  of  the  seminar  during  the  time  Mrs.  Young 
attended  it  speaks  of  her  as  follows:  "My  impressions  of  her  then 
were  that  she  was  a  serious  student,  alert  to  what  was  going  on,  had 
opinions  of  her  own,  and  was  able  to  express  them.  In  this  latter 
respect  I  used  to  feel  that  she  went  too  far;  she  seemed  inclined  to 
run  things  somewhat.  I  could  see  that  she  was  acquainted  with 
Dewey,  and  he  appeared  to  let  her  have  a  good  deal  of  rein  —  per- 
haps on  account  of  their  acquaintance.  She  was  not  of  the  tiresome 
talker  variety,  who  monopolizes  things  and  rides  over  you.  What 
she  had  to  say  was  good.   There  were  no  indications  of  verbo-mani% 


Higher  Educakon  103 

That  she  profited  by  this  association  of  theory  and 
practice  is  evident  both  from  the  effects  of  her  work 
on  the  schools  during  these  years  and  from  her  state- 
ments made  before  various  bodies  of  teachers  in  the 
city.  The  first  public  mention  Mrs.  Young  makes  of 
the  work  of  the  University  was  in  an  address  delivered 
in  January,  1899.  In  this  address  she  said  with  refer- 
ence to  the  work: 

The  University  of  Chicago  has  recently  opened  what  it  calls 
a  college  for  teachers.  With  a  warm  appreciation  of  the  frater- 
nal attitude  of  the  University  towards  the  public-school  teaching 
corps,  I  must  express  my  pleasure  in  the  new  department.  I  am 
forced,  however,  to  say  that  the  title  of  the  new  department  is 
confusing.  There  are  two  gains  to  teachers  in  the  opening  of 
the  college,  but  neither  of  these  in  any  way  warrants  the  phrase 
"  college  for  teachers."  The  first  gain  is  in  the  lessening  of  the 
distance  to  be  traveled  by  persons,  not  necessarily  teachers,  living 
in  the  north  and  west  divisions  of  the  city  and  wishing  to  study 
under  some  of  the  best  teachers  in  the  University.  The  second 
gain  is  the  definite  understanding  as  to  the  conditions  under 
which  teachers  work  in  order  to  obtain  a  degree.  Neither  of 
these  gains,  as  has  been  said  before,  has  any  relation  to  the  ideal 
for  which  "  teacher  "  stands. 

To  the  inquiry,  "Would  you  have  the  college  simply  a  nor- 
mal school  or  a  school  of  pedagogy  for  experienced  teachers?" 
I  reply,  "  By  no  means."  The  contention  is  that  there  is  nothing 
in  the  method  of  study  of  languages  or  sciences  that  makes  for 
better  teaching  in  the  elementary  schools,  any  more  than  there 
is  in  the  departments  "  not  for  teachers."  Judging  by  the 
expressions  of  some  who  are  enrolled  as  students  in  the  college, 
it  is  looked  upon  as  a  ladder  by  which  teachers  in  the  elementary 


or  the  sort  of  egotism  that  bores  one  to  death.  It  was  rather,  if  any- 
thing, a  case  of  her  and  Dewey  discussing  Hegel  to  the  neglect  of  the 
rest  of  us.  I  do  not  know  that  her  views  were  '  way  yonder '  ahead 
of  the  average  of  the  class,  but  she  was  disposed  to  '  get  into  the 
game'  about  all  the  time,  and  of  course  she  was  giving  her  own  views 
and  not  absorbing  those  of  others." 


104  Ella  Flagg  Young 

schools  may  climb  into  the  secondary-school  corps,  and  members 
of  the  high-school  corps  into  college  and  university  faculties. 
It  is  not  desired  that  the  instruction  shall  be  diluted  to  the  com- 
prehension of  young  children,  but  it  is  desired  that  the  work 
shall  be  so  related  to  life  that  students  in  the  college  for  teachers 
shall  not  share  with  university  graduates  in  a  distaste  for  teach- 
ing the  young  below  the  high  schools.  The  outlook  for  ele- 
mentary education  is  not  brightened  by  the  present  attitude  of 
the  student  class  toward  the  child  under  fifteen  years  of  age. 
The  present  treatment  of  subjects  makes  one  almost  understand 
the  objection  to  giving  women  a  higher  education,  as  it  takes 
them  away  from  the  children,  and  somebody  must  teach  the 
children.  The  narrow  limits  within  which  the  vast  majority 
of  teachers  pursued  their  studies  have  restricted  both  their 
method  and  their  theory  of  education.  But  those  offering  ad- 
vanced courses  to  teachers  should  make  sure  that  the  elements 
of  the  deepest  and  highest  forms  of  life  are  in  what  they  offer. 
The  manner  in  which  the  University  has  thrown  open  its 
doors  to  the  Chicago  teachers  commands  our  admiration.  It 
meets  our  ideal  of  a  university  as  a  great  educational  force, 
shedding  its  light  throughout  an  entire  city.  That  the  teachings 
of  the  department  of  philosophy  and  pedagogy  have  not  been 
concreted  in  the  department  termed  the  college  for  teachers  sur- 
prises and  disappoints  us.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  plan  of  the 
college  will  receive  further  consideration  in  time,  giving  to  its 
students  an  equipment  that  will  elevate  the  teaching  corps  in 
all  the  departments  of  its  work.  With  the  University  faculty 
and  other  competent  lecturers  on  the  subjects  of  arts,  science,  and 
literature  in  this  city,  the  public-school  teacher  who  can  calmly 
look  on,  taking  no  part  in  class  or  club  organized  for  study, 
must  regret  the  hard  fortune  which  forces  her  to  mingle  with 
the  great  body  of  Chicago  teachers  —  a  body  of  students. 

With  this  statement  It  is  evident  that  Mrs.  Young 
had  seen  clearly  the  influence  which  the  University  was 
exerting  and  would  continue  to  exert.  Two  direct  influ- 
ences were  felt  coming  from  the  school.  In  the  first 
place,  President  Harper  was  a  man  whose  ambition 
to  organize  and  systematize  institutions  with  which  he 
came  into  touch  led  him  to  undertake  such  a  task  with 


Higher  Education  105 

the  public  schools  of  Chicago.  Whether,  as  he  was 
accused  at  the  time,  he  had  any  notion  of  making  a 
great  educational  "trust,"  using  the  city  schools  as 
feeders  for  the  University,  need  not  be  considered.  He 
did  undertake  to  centralize  and  control  the  adminis- 
tration of  schools  as  was  pointed  out  in  the  last  chapter. 
"The  school  system  requires  radical  improvement," 
reads  the  report  of  the  Harper  Commission.  It  recom- 
mended that  the  board  of  education  should  be  made 
up  of  eleven  members  who  were  to  be  "only  men  of 
the  highest  character  and  enlightenment."  The  board 
should  be  alone  responsible  for  the  purchase  of  sites 
and  the  erection  of  buildings,  and  not  dependent  upon 
the  city  council  in  these  matters.  Committee  govern- 
ment of  school  affairs  as  practiced  by  the  board  was 
condemned.  The  superintendent  of  schools  "  should  be 
granted  much  larger  power"  and  elected  for  a  term 
of  six  years.  All  educational  questions,  course  of  study, 
text-books,  apparatus,  examination,  appointment  and 
dismissal  of  teachers,  devolves  upon  him.  There  should 
be  a  capable  business  manager  "  free  to  apply  the  same 
methods  as  in  a  well-conducted  business,"  and  he  was 
to  have  the  same  salary  and  length  of  service  as  the 
superintendent.  Teachers  should  be  required  to  possess 
higher  standards,  and  to  secure  such  the  normal  course 
was  to  be  lengthened  from  one  to  two  years.  Salaries 
were  to  be  based  on  promotion  gained  through  efficiency 
rather  than  on  length  of  service.  A  more  flexible  course 
of  study  was  demanded,  reduction  of  some  of  the  sub- 
jects in  the  course  was  called  for,  with  the  introduction 
of  "constructive  work"  into  every  grade.  The  commis- 
sion recommended  the  establishment  of  kindergartens, 


io6  Ella  Flagg  Young 

vocational  and  evening  schools,  more  manual  training 
in  the  high  schools,  and  a  four-year  "commercial  high 
school."  It  recommended  also  the  use  of  school  yards 
as  playgrounds  and  a  wider  use  of  the  school  plant. 
The  commission  discussed  forms  of  parental  schools 
and  recommended  the  establishment  of  one  in  Chicago. 
In  order  to  stimulate  them  to  further  advancement  the 
teachers  in  service  were  to  be  formed  into  faculties  or 
councils  to  discuss  educational  problems. 

The  law  proposed  by  the  commission  to  secure  these 
changes  was  the  object  of  the  most  bitter  attacks. 
Several  teachers'  organizations  in  the  city  opposed  the 
idea  of  a  reduction  in  the  number  of  members  on  the 
school  board  and  argued  that  it  should  be  larger  rather 
than  smaller.  Such  discussions  as  the  following  were 
common  in  the  clubs  of  teachers: 

1.  Should  the  board  of  education  be  representative,  espe- 
cially, or  is  it  to  perform  a  service  to  society  as  a  unit  ? 

2.  Is  this  service  such  as  requires  numbers  or  may  it  be  per- 
formed best  by  few  with  wisdom,  skill,  and  integrity? 

3.  Should  candidates  for  appointment  to  the  board  be  re- 
quired to  give  evidence  of  qualifications  as  to  age,  skill,  wisdom, 
and  character? 

4.  Should  the  board  be  expected  or  permitted  to  decide  ques- 
tions involving  professional  skill  and  knowledge? 

5.  Is  it  wise  to  trust  the  school  interests  of  this  great  city 
entirely  to  one  person  ? 

6.  Would  it  not  be  wise  to  have  a  board  of  superintendence 
to  decide  regarding  general  policies  relating  to  all  parts  of  the 
city? 

7.  Can  we  not  have  a  law  that  may  give  due  freedom  and 
responsibility  to  superintendent,  district  superintendent,  prin- 
cipal, and  teacher? 

Most  of  the  complaints  against  the  bill  proposed  by 
the  Harper  Commission  were  of  too  great  centraliza- 


Higher  Education  107 

tion  of  power  in  a  few  hands.  A  superintendent  and 
business  manager  appointed  for  six  years  with  power 
over  the  educational  and  business  affairs  were  greatly 
feared.  In  the  report  of  one  committee  of  teachers  are 
found  the  words : 

We  object  to  the  centralization  of  power  in  the  superin- 
tendent in  the  matter  of  hiring  his  assistants,  principals,  super- 
visors, teachers,  and  other  officials,  and  the  selecting  of  text- 
books. We  feel  that  the  idea  of  democracy  should  be  encour- 
aged. It  is  necessary  in  a  city  like  Chicago  for  the  people  to  be 
in  close  touch  with  the  work  of  the  school,  made  up  as  it  is  of 
a  mixed  population. 

In  spite  of  opposition  to  the  recommendations  of  the 
Harper  Commission  great  strides  were  made  in  the 
direction  of  greater  efficiency  in  administration.  At  the 
same  time  the  conflict  between  a  more  highly  centralized 
administration  and  greater  freedom  among  teachers 
was  raised  and  became  so  acute  that  Chicago  schools 
for  several  years  presented  a  continual  commotion, 
sometimes  with  the  school  board  and  superintendent  on 
one  side  against  the  teachers,  and  sometimes  with  super- 
intendent and  teachers  standing  together  for  greater 
freedom.  The  Harper  Commission  marks  an  epoch  in 
school  history  in  Chicago,  and  through  it  the  University 
exercised  a  powerful  influence  on  the  schools. 

The  second  direction  through  which  the  University 
of  Chicago  came  into  the  school  life  and  thought  of  the 
city  was  in  the  influence  of  the  department  of  philosophy 
under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  John  Dewey.  The  essen- 
tial contribution  of  this  department  had  been  to  turn 
philosophical  interest  and  thought  towards  the  prob- 
lems of  society  of  the  present  day.    As  Mr.  James  put 


io8  Ella  Flagg  Young 

it,  this  was  a  new  school  of  thought.  Instead  of  making 
philosophy  a  dry-as-dust  digging  up  of  the  thoughts  of 
the  ancients  and  devoting  time  to  philological  disser- 
tations, Mr.  Dewey  and  his  associates  turned  towards 
the  problems  of  human  life.  Since  thought  is  dynamic 
and  pragmatic,  its  province  is  in  a  living,  acting  world 
of  people. 

It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  Mr.  Dewey  turned 
his  attention  to  problems  of  elementary  education. 
Education  gives  opportunity  for  putting  into  effect  the 
ideas  and  principles  which  thinking  brings  to  light. 
There,  also,  is  found  opportunity  for  testing  and  devel- 
oping, through  experimentation,  theories  of  human 
conduct.  As  pointed  out  by  Mrs.  Young,  the  depart- 
ment of  philosophy  had  already  been  strongly  felt  in 
the  awakening  of  a  higher  and  more  intelligent  concep- 
tion of  the  work  of  education.  Other  evidences  of  Mr. 
Dewey's  influence  on  the  schools  of  the  city  are  not 
wanting.  Many  of  the  more  ambitious  teachers  and 
principals  had  taken  advantage  of  the  courses  which 
he  offered,  such  as  that  attended  by  Mrs.  Young.  In 
the  course  of  study  adopted  for  the  elementary  schools 
of  Chicago  in  1897,  not  only  were  the  ideas  of  Mr. 
Dewey  clearly  evident,  but  even  phraseology  used  by 
him  found  a  place,  such  as  his  statement  that  "the 
school  is  not  a  preparation  for  life,  but  is  life."  Most 
significant  for  the  schools  at  large  was  the  new  "lab- 
oratory school"  founded  by  Mr.  Dewey  in  1896.  This 
school  attempted  to  "concrete,"  to  use  the  expression 
of  Mrs.  Young,  some  of  the  ideas  and  plans  promul- 
gated by  the  department  of  philosophy  at  the  Univer- 
sity.  Visitors  were  attracted  to  this  school  from  all 


Higher  Education  109 

parts  of  the  country,  and  its  influence  was  widespread, 
even  though  the  school  lasted  but  a  few  years.  In  1900 
Mrs.  Young  became  a  "supervisor"  in  this  school. 

The  spirit  of  this  school  was  stated  by  Mr.  Dewey 
in  his  book,  School  and  Society. 

A  recent  writer  speaks  of  a  revision  of  the  book  thus : 

When  Professor  Dewey  brought  out  the  first  edition  of 
School  and  Society,  in  1899,  he  found  a  very  eager  audience 
for  the  doctrines  of  innovation  which  he  had  to  teach.  From 
a  broad  sociological  and  ethical  point  of  view  Dewey  called 
attention  to  radical  economic  changes  which  have  been  going 
on  in  society  and  outlined  the  corresponding  changes  which 
must  be  made  in  the  organization  and  course  of  study  of  the 
schools.  He  called  attention,  in  his  second  chapter,  to  the  neces- 
sity of  making  all  of  these  changes  with  due  recognition  of  the 
child's  intellectual  and  physical  and  moral  nature.  In  the  third 
chapter  he  pointed  out  the  fact  that  our  present  school  organiza- 
tion is  very  defective  because  of  its  failure  to  bring  together  the 
different  educational  agencies  in  any  unified  way.  In  the  earlier 
edition,  the  fourth  chapter  contained  a  sketch  of  the  history  of 
the  laboratory  school  which  Dewey  founded.  The  questions 
that  were  to  be  investigated  by  that  school  were  outlined,  and 
one  derived  a  clear  understanding  from  that  chapter  of  the 
reasons  why  Dewey  called  his  school  a  laboratory  school.  Fur- 
thermore, the  questions  raised  by  Dewey  made  it  evident  even 
to  the  inexperienced  reader  that  educational  experimentation  is 
very  much  needed  in  order  to  improve  both  the  method  of 
instruction  and  the  organization  of  the  curriculum.  .  .  .  Cer- 
tainly Professor  Dewey  may  rest  assured  of  the  very  great 
influence  of  his  book.  It  is  given  only  to  a  few  men  to  write 
educational  classics.  Since  Spencer  wrote  his  essays  there  has 
not  been  a  more  important  contribution  to  educational  reform 
than  Dewey's  School  and  Society.  (The  Elementary  School 
Journal,  October,  191 5.) 

From  a  position  as  superintendent  in  the  public 
schools  Mrs.  Young  went  into  Mr.  Dewey's  depart- 
ment in  1899. 


110  Ella  Flagg  Young 

At  the  time  of  her  resignation  from  the  schools  of 
the  city  she  planned  for  a  year  abroad,  to  travel  and 
study.  The  night  before  her  departure,  in  June,  Presi- 
dent Harper  of  the  University  of  Chicago  sent  his 
secretary  to  interview  her  on  the  subject  of  her  taking 
a  place  in  the  faculty  of  the  University,  She  refused  at 
first  to  consider  the  matter,  and  he  sent  his  secretary 
a  second  time  asking  for  the  interview.  He  offered 
her  a  full  professorship  in  the  department  of  pedagogy, 
but  she  could  not  bring  herself  to  accept  such  a  position 
without  ever  having  taken  any  college  degree.  "  How 
could  I  go  before  my  students  and  urge  them  on  to 
higher  education  without  first  having  even  a  bachelor's 
degree  myself?  "  President  Harper  offered  her  a  posi- 
tion which  he  said  he  would  "create  on  the  spot"  for 
her — "associate  professorial  lecturer  in  pedagogy" — 
and  give  her  an  opportunity  to  study  during  the  first 
year  for  her  degree.  This  position  she  accepted  and 
cut  her  visit  to  Europe  short,  returning  to  the  Univer- 
sity at  the  opening  of  the  fall  quarter.  For  a  year  she 
pursued  courses  in  philosophy  and  psychology,  continu- 
ing the  work  begun  in  Mr.  Dewey's  seminar.  At  the 
end  of  that  time  she  was  granted  a  degree  in  philosophy 
and  education.  She  became  a  full  professor  of  educa- 
tion after  having  obtained  her  degree.  A  story  char- 
acteristic of  Mrs.  Young's  lack  of  formality  she  tells 
giving  her  experience  in  the  examination  for  this  degree. 

It  was  a  blistering  hot  day  and  we  were  garbed  in  cap  and 
gown  and  sitting  about  the  long  table  in  impressive  style.  I 
took  off  my  cap  and  said  I  guessed  it  would  be  safe  on  the  table, 
and  then  slipped  my  gown  back  onto  the  back  of  my  chair.  My 
act,  though  a  breach  of  the  dignity  of  the  occasion,  at  least  made 


Higher  Education  1 1 1 

me  much  more  comfortable  for  the  prolonged  questioning  of  the 
august  committee. 

Mrs.  Young  and  Mr.  Dewey  became  associated  in 
the  closest  unity  in  their  work  during  her  five  years 
in  the  University.  Her  wide  range  of  experience  and 
her  wonderful  grasp  of  the  details  of  school  work 
complemented  his  philosophic  insight  Into  the  under- 
lying principles  of  the  subject.  Her  adaptability  and 
power  to  learn  gave  her  the  benefit  of  this  new  prag- 
matic Interpretation  of  life  and  education.  Their  work 
together  was  made  the  more  efifective  because  of  their 
mutual  appreciation  of  each  other's  power.  Both  were 
fundamentally  democratic  In  thought  and  character, 
and,  as  a  consequence,  they  could  lay  aside  all  sham 
dignity  and  enter  at  once  into  the  heart  of  the  problems 
of  philosophy  and  education.  One  of  the  products  of 
such  discussion  was  the  joint  authorship  of  six  mono- 
graphs called  by  them  Contributions  to  Education 
(The  University  of  Chicago  Press,  1902).  Mrs. 
Young  wrote  three  of  the  six — Isolation  in  the  School, 
Ethics  in  the  School,  and  Some  Types  of  Modern  Edu- 
cational Theory.  In  the  first  of  these  essays  she  takes 
up,  first,  "The  parts  of  the  social  Institution,"  secondly, 
"  Some  recent  constructions  of  psychological,  ethic,  and 
logical  modes  that  must  be  recognized  In  a  rational 
conduct  of  the  school,"  and,  thirdly,  "The  function  of 
a  school  In  democracy."  Mrs,  Young  stated  most  fully 
her  philosophical  point  of  view  In  this  essay  and  shows 
very  clearly  how  she  had  been  influenced  by  modern 
biological  conceptions  of  psychology  and  philosophy 
In  her  thinking  and  writing  on  educational  questions. 

Imitation  and  Invention  as  shown  In  children  are  two 


112  Ella  Flagg  Young 

sides  of  the  same  activity,  and  this  activity,  as  the  author 
points  out,  is  controlled  by  the  organism  which  pos- 
sesses the  "original  impulse  which  selects  and  reacts. 
The  modern  psychologist  has  thus  shown  the  growth 
of  mental  power,  even  in  so  primary  an  activity  as 
imitation,  to  depend  upon  the  modification  which  the 
mind  of  the  imitator  originates."  Again,  in  discussing 
the  formation  of  habit,  she  has  pointed  out  the  biolog- 
ical aspect  of  this  form  of  growth.  She  criticizes  both 
Carpenter  and  James,  saying: 

The  chapters  written  by  these  brilliant  men  are  decided 
contributions  to  psychological  and  ethical  theory;  and  yet,  in 
neither  does  the  writer  rise  to  the  command  of  the  subject  which 
shows  that  the  imitative  and  the  habit,  the  cause  that  makes  the 
nerve-current  traverse  a  certain  path  the  first  time  and  the 
repetition  of  the  act,  are  the  two  aspects  of  a  unity. 

She  finds  in  Baldwin's  Mental  Development  an  an- 
swer to  the  question  of  "What  made  the  current 
traverse  the  path  for  the  first  time?"  and  quotes: 

Habit  expresses  the  tendency  of  the  organism  to  secure  and 
retain  its  vital  stimulations.  On  this  view,  a  habit  begins  before 
the  movement  which  illustrates  it  actually  takes  place ;  the  organ- 
ism is  endowed  with  a  habit,  if  that  be  not  considered  a  contra- 
diction. 

But  she  finds  Baldwin's  biological  view  of  habit  for- 
mation contradicting  the  doctrine  of  mind  set  forth  in 
modern  psychology,  and  so  sets  up  another  view  in 
which  she  follows  Dewey's  doctrine  of  "the  reflex  arc 
concept"*  of  habit  formation  in  education.  This  new 


Psychological  Revieiv,  vol  III,  1893. 


Higher  Education  113 

conception,  instead  of  presenting  destruction  as  the  out- 
come of  reformation,  strengthens  the  self-respect  by 
the  requirement  to  search  for  the  elements  of  power 
and  then  utilize  them  in  the  new  mode.  The  dull  rou- 
tine of  trying  to  form  habits  by  wearisome  repetitions, 
the  discouraging  process  of  trying  to  overcome  the 
enemy,  the  old  habit,  only  to  find  it  upon  the  first  lapse 
of  vigilance  reinstated  in  full  sway,  must  give  way  to 
a  higher  type  of  activity. 

When  Mrs.  Young  made  this  statement  she  was 
thinking  of  the  fossil  type  of  school  grind  through 
which  children  are  passed  in  order  to  form  habits. 
She  had  in  mind  the  fruitless  repetitions,  known  as 
"  drill,"  which  young  children  are  compelled  to  endure, 
while  all  this  wasted  energy  might  be  turned  into  useful 
channels  of  learning  both  for  children  and  society. 

A  third  illustration  in  this  essay  of  the  psychological 
characteristic  and  tendency  of  Mrs.  Young's  writings 
is  shown  in  her  treatment  of  attention.  Attention  is 
always  a  function  of  the  person's  purposes,  according 
to  the  author,  and  is  controlled  by  the  ends  he  sets  out 
to  accomplish.  Inattention,  therefore,  is  merely  an- 
other way  of  saying  that  the  person  is  attending  to 
something  else  or  has  purposes  in  other  directions  from 
those  immediately  apparent. 

If  the  general  consensus  of  opinion  as  to  the  relation  between 
mind-wandering  and  attention  were  taken,  it  would  be  found 
to  embody  the  idea  that  in  trying  to  follow  oral  discourse  the 
mind  of  the  listener  can  often  be  kept  from  wandering  by  the 
mechanical  repetition  of  the  words  of  the  speaker.  Here,  in  a 
nutshell,  is  the  perversity  of  the  theory  which  often  makes 
dullards  of  the  young.  What  value  is  it  to  keep  the  mind  from 
wandering  if  it  is  tethered  to  words,  not  intelligence?    The 


114  ^^^^  Fla^g  Young 

failure  to  distinguish  sharply  between  the  discriminating  alert- 
ness of  attention  and  the  undistinguishing  passivity  of  the  mere 
repetition  of  words  is  due,  probably,  to  the  non-recognition  of 
the  activity  of  feeling,  as  well  as  of  intellect,  in  the  process  of 
attention. 

To  attempt  to  secure  attention  of  children  by  stirring 
up  fictitious  kinds  of  interest  is  to  destroy  their  capacity 
to  follow  through  serious  problems  which  they  may 
have  to  meet.  The  modern  psychologist  is  more  fully 
concerned  in  the  capacity  of  the  organism  to  pick  out 
and  hold  up  ends  which  are  of  value  to  life  than  he 
is  in  any  other  aspect  of  behavior.  While  Mrs.  Young's 
statement  of  this  problem  is  very  brief,  it  opens  up  the 
entire  field  of  application  of  attention  to  school  work. 
It  is  in  the  direction  of  the  use  of  these  psychological 
concepts  in  teaching  that  she  has  been  of  most  service 
in  this  essay. 

The  second  study  of  the  Contributions  to  Education 
was  her  Ethics  in  the  School  (The  University  of  Chi- 
cago Press,  1902,  pp.  44).  In  style  this  essay  is  the 
freest  and  most  popularly  written  of  Mrs.  Young's 
works,  and  sets  forth  clearly  her  position  as  to  the 
function  of  the  school  in  forming  character  in  children. 
In  her  ethics  as  well  as  in  her  logic,  Mrs.  Young  is  a 
democrat.  Moreover,  her  democracy  is  for  each 
person,  whether  that  person  be  adult  or  child. 

Without  depreciating  the  value  of  the  experience  of  the  adult 
in  weighing  conditions  that  are  often  new  and  perplexing  to 
the  boy  or  girl,  one  sees  in  this  assumption  of  a  command  of  all 
that  is  right  and  reasonable  by  the  adult,  an  ignoring  of  men- 
tality in  the  child.  The  conduct  of  a  home  or  a  school  on  the 
theory  that  it  is  the  parent's  home,  or  the  teacher's  school,  and 
hence  the  child  must  conform  to  the  laws,  rules,  or  customs 


Higher  Education  115 

which  the  parent  or  teacher  has  decided  to  be  satisfactory  to 
him,  is  hostile  to  the  growth  in  the  mind  of  the  child  of  an  ideal 
co-partnership  in  and  responsibility  for  the  order  and  care  of 
that  home  or  that  school.     {Ethics  in  the  School,  p.  31.) 

Her  respect  for  the  right  to  think  and  for  the  person- 
ality of  others  is  the  most  fundamental  part  of  the 
ethical  teaching  in  this  as  well  as  other  statements. 
In  her  essay  already  quoted,  Isolation  in  the  School,  she 
says :  "  The  most  difficult  line  of  action  to  pursue  is 
that  which  respects  the  rights  of  other  minds;  not  the 
rights  of  property,  but  of  thought."  (p.  no.)  In  the 
same  essay  she  quotes  Mill's  words  that  "  intellectual 
power  and  practical  love  of  truth  are  alike  impossible 
where  the  reasoner  is  shown  his  conclusions  and  in- 
formed beforehand  that  he  is  expected  to  arrive  at 
them."  (p.  72.)  Freedom  and  democracy  are  the  two 
principles  which  run  through  all  the  writings  of  Mrs. 
Young  on  ethics. 

Some  Types  of  Modern  Educational  Theory  is  the 
title  of  the  third  study  of  the  Contributions.  In  It  the 
author  discusses  the  views  of  Arnold  Tompkins  as  set 
forth  in  his  Philosophy  of  Teaching,  a  book  published 
in  1 891;  of  Mary  R.  Ailing- Aber's  Experiment;  of 
W.  W.  Speer's  theory  of  education;  of  Francis  W. 
Parker's  Course  of  Study;  of  John  Dewey's  educational 
doctrine.  She  analyzes  fairly,  though  briefly,  the  point 
of  view  of  each  doctrine,  and  states  the  directions  in 
which  it  conforms  to  modern  psychology  and  philosophy 
of  education. 

Another  essay  written  while  a  member  of  the  Uni- 
versity faculty  and  appearing  as  one  of  the  papers 
furnished  by  the  several  departments  for  the  Decennial 


Ii6  Ella  Flagg  Young 

Publications  was  her  Scientific  Method  in  Education 
(First  series,  vol.  Ill,  Decennial  Publications,  The  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago  Press,  1903,  pp.  15).  Here  a  strong 
plea  is  made  for  the  application  of  scientific  method  in 
matters  educational.  Criticizing  modern  educational 
method  and  its  unscientific  attitude,  she  says: 

Educational  method  has,  however,  disclaimed  the  name  of 
science,  and  rightly,  too.  It  started  with  the  expressed  aim  of 
setting  conditions  that  would  be  conducive  to  the  development 
of  the  child  according  to  the  law  of  its  being.  Its  terms  have 
been  those  of  evolution  and  development,  but  its  meanings  have 
been  meanings  of  pre-Darwinian  times.  With  the  magnification 
of  the  teacher  as  the  external  force,  whose  chief  office  was  to 
prepare  the  nutritious  food  in  layers  so  that  it  should  be  taken 
in  accord  with  the  determined  laws  of  nature,  there  has  been  a 
steady  growth  of  non-scientific  method  in  the  schools.  To  plan 
and  conduct  a  recitation  so  that  the  learner  shall  neither  hesitate 
nor  stumble  have  been  the  alpha  and  omega  of  so-called  educa- 
tional method,     (p.  5.) 

The  courses  of  Mr.  Dewey  and  Mrs.  Young  in  the 
University  were  developed  so  as  to  complement  each 
other,  and  students  in  the  department  felt  the  force 
of  these  two  great  minds  coming  at  problems  from 
distinctly  different  points  of  view  yet  developing  a  com- 
mon underlying  philosophy  of  the  subject. 

Mrs.  Young  was  dissatisfied  with  the  name  of  the 
department  into  which  she  went,  and  her  objections 
changed  the  department  of  pedagogy  to  that  of  educa- 
tion. Her  courses  included  work  in  psychology  and 
education,  social  aspects  of  education,  the  history  of 
the  arts,  the  philosophy  of  activity  in  education,  and 
handwork  as  an  educational  instrument.  As  a  teacher 
in  the  University  Mrs.  Young  was  particularly  stimu- 


Higher  Education  117 

latlng.  She  never  lectured  to  her  classes.  Her  great 
power  lay  in  her  ability  to  draw  out  her  students  and 
make  them  take  stands  on  questions  at  issue.  In  her 
questions  she  cut  both  to  the  heart  of  the  matter  In 
hand  and  to  the  deepest  and  often  hitherto  unexpressed 
beliefs  of  her  students.  But  the  recitation  was  not 
merely  a  debate  on  some  question.  It  was  rather  a 
many-sided  symposium,  involving  the  contributions  of 
each  one  in  the  class.  Her  stimulating  power  came 
from  her  democratic  respect  and  faith  in  each  person 
in  her  work,  or,  as  someone  else  has  put  it,  in  her  power 
to  make  each  one  believe  in  himself.  Each  felt  called 
upon  to  do  his  best  and  felt  his  power  to  do  the  subject 
justice.  All  this  did  not  come  from  an  exhortation  to 
her  class,  but  from  her  power  to  present  the  subject  in 
a  way  that  compelled  the  student  to  lose  himself  in  it 
as  it  opened  up  under  the  leadership  of  an  active  mind 
and  spirit.  Whether  the  course  was  a  history  of  the 
arts,  or  method  in  history  and  grammar,  her  work  was 
always  effective  and  stimulating.  Said  a  former  stu- 
dent years  afterward:  "Do  you  know  that  the  work  I 
had  with  Mrs.  Young  carried  farther  into  practical 
teaching  and  administration  than  anything  I  took  at 
the  University?"  He  himself  was  a  man  of  mature 
years  and  experience  at  the  time  he  attended  her  classes. 
Always  outside  the  problem,  like  a  scientist  with  his 
material  before  him,  she  never  set  up  her  own  opinion 
or  position  between  the  student  and  the  subject  itself. 
She  never  obscured  the  issue  by  a  preliminary  disserta- 
tion nor  limited  it  by  her  own  immediate  vision.  Often 
persons  in  the  class  expressed  dissatisfaction  that  she 
did  not  express  definitely  the  ends  she  expected  them 


Ii8  Ella  Flagg  Young 

to  arrive  at,  but  she  always  kept  In  the  background  so 
that  one  was  never  quite  sure  of  her  deepest  thoughts 
on  the  matter.  Whether  she  was  herself  groping  for  a 
deeper  meaning  and  was  striving  for  further  enlighten- 
ment and  was  thus  unwilling  to  commit  herself  and 
her  students  to  an  unfinished  and  imperfect  viewpoint, 
or  whether  she  merely  held  back  in  order  to  bring  them 
to  their  own  formulation,  was  never  quite  clear  to  her 
students.  Undoubtedly  her  hesitation  in  such  cases  was 
the  act  of  a  teacher  seeking  to  throw  the  responsibility 
upon  the  judgment  of  those  she  was  trying  to  teach 
and  refusing  to  bind  them  to  a  doctrine  of  her  own. 
Her  ability  to  set  one  doctrine  over  against  another, 
to  make  the  student  carry  on  these  doctrines  to  some 
objective  goal  of  their  own  making,  while  she  stood 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  struggle,  helping  here  and  there 
with  a  suggestion,  was  likely  to  obscure  to  those  in  the 
midst  of  the  discussion  the  fact  that  she  really  had  a 
principle  at  stake  and  was  deeply  committed  to  a  par- 
ticular philosophy  back  of  the  problem. 

As  matter  of  fact,  however,  she  was  continually 
growing  in  her  own  viewpoint  and  mastery  of  modern 
thought  at  the  very  time  she  carried  on  her  classes  in 
the  University.  One  need  only  read  some  of  her  earlier 
and  her  later  essays  and  speeches  to  note  the  tremen- 
dous growth  of  the  author  of  them  during  these  years. 
Probably  the  most  remarkable  aspect  of  Mrs.  Young 
was  her  power  to  grow  during  the  years  from  her 
entrance  to  the  University  to  the  time  of  her  with- 
drawal. For  a  woman  of  her  age  to  take  up  courses 
in  the  University  and  grow  through  the  entire  time  is 
a  criterion  of  Mrs.  Young's  character. 


Higher  Education  119 

While  In  the  University  her  heart,  as  always,  was 
in  the  problems  of  elementary-school  teachers.  In  her 
address  on  the  University  before  she  entered  there, 
Mrs.  Young  pointed  out  the  danger  of  higher  educa- 
tion drawing  teachers  away  from  elementary  grades. 
Upon  her  entrance  into  the  University  she  attempted 
to  put  her  ideas  into  practice  and  developed  her  work 
as  far  as  possible  for  the  elementary-school  teachers. 
She  kept  In  touch  with  the  schools  by  having  a  club  of 
teachers  meet  at  her  home  once  each  week  during  all 
her  residence  at  the  University.  This  was  the  continua- 
tion of  the  club  which  originated  in  her  own  school 
while  she  was  principal,  though  it  had  grown  In  num- 
bers and  changed  somewhat  In  personnel.  Not  only 
were  her  courses  planned  for  the  elementary  teachers, 
not  only  did  she  keep  in  touch  with  them  through  per- 
sonal association  with  them,  but  she  became  the  editor 
of  a  magazine  planned  directly  for  that  class  of  read- 
ers, The  Elementary  School  Teacher.  Her  essays  and 
addresses  published  during  this  time  dealt  with  elemen- 
tary-school problems  and  were  addressed  to  them. 

When  Mr.  Dewey  left  the  University  In  1904,  Mrs. 
Young  felt  that  she  could  not  remain  with  conditions 
as  they  were  at  the  time.  She  was  asked  to  stay  and 
continue  the  work  of  the  department  of  education,  but 
she  declined. 

Mr.  Dewey's  estimate  of  Mrs.  Young  Is  set  forth  In 
the  following  letter,  quoted  at  length  because  of  its 
clear  and  sympathetic  analysis  of  her  character: 

Regarding  my  relations  to  Mrs.  Young:  First,  it  is  hard  for 
me  to  be  specific,  because  they  were  so  continuous  and  so  detailed 
that  the  influence  resulting  from  them  was  largely  insensible. 


120  Ella  Flagg  Young 

I  was  constantly  getting  ideas  from  her.  In  the  reorganization 
of  the  laboratory  school  after  certain  weaknesses  in  its  original 
scheme  of  administration  had  become  apparent  (due  largely  to 
my  inexperience  in  administrative  matters)  her  influence  with 
that  of  Mrs.  Dewey  were  the  controlling  factors.  It  is  due  to 
these  two  that  the  laboratory  school  ran  so  much  more  system- 
atically and  definitely  —  free  from  a  certain  looseness  of  ends 
and  edges — in  its  last  three  or  four  years. 

In  my  opinion,  what  Mrs.  Young  got  from  her  study  of 
philosophy  was  chiefly  a  specific  intellectual  point  of  view  and 
terminology  (the  two  things  can't  be  separated,  for  terminology 
with  a  person  like  Mrs.  Young  is  a  very  real  thing,  not  a  verbal 
one)  in  which  to  clear  up  and  express  the  practical  outcome  of 
her  prior  experience.  This  gave  her  in  turn  a  greater  com- 
mand of  her  experience  and  a  greater  intellectual  assurance. 
This  led  her  in  many  respects  to  overestimate  the  explicit  content 
of  my  own  teachings.  That  is,  she  gave  me  credit  for  seeing 
all  of  the  bearings  and  implication  which  she  with  her  experience 
and  outlook  got  out  of  what  I  said.  As  a  student  (in  the  class- 
room, I  mean)  I  should  say  her  chief  mark  was  the  ineradicable 
tendency  to  test  all  philosophic  formulations  by  restatement  of 
them  in  terms  of  experience  —  and  this  not  the  conventional 
"experience"  of  philosophy,  but  a  very  definite  experience  of 
what  the  doctrine  would  mean  if  attempted  in  practice  —  the 
difference  it  would  actually  make  in  the  way  of  looking  at  other 
things  than  just  philosophy.  She  had  by  temperament  and  train- 
ing the  gist  of  a  concrete  empirical  pragmatism  with  reference 
to  philosophical  conceptions  before  the  doctrine  was  ever  formu- 
lated in  print.  Another  thing  that  impressed  me  was  the  range 
of  her  experience  —  its  scope,  and  her  habitual  attitude  of  open- 
ness to  everything  which  would  enrich  it.  To  say  that  I  have 
never  seen  a  student  of  her  age  who  had  retained  the  flexibility 
and  open-mindedness  of  younger  students  is  to  understate  the 
fact  very  much  —  her  experience  had,  instead  of  closing  her 
mind,  made  it  more  eager  and  more  competent  in  growth.  She 
hadn't  retained  flexibility  and  open-mindedness;  she  had  culti- 
vated and  acquired  them  to  an  extraordinary  degree. 

Apart  from  the  suggestions,  which  were  so  numerous  that  I 
couldn't  name  them,  what  I  chiefly  got  from  Mrs.  Young  was 
just  the  translation  of  philosophic  conceptions  into  their  empir- 
ical equivalents.    More  times  than  I  could  well  say  I  didn't  see 


Higher  Education  121 

the  meaning  or  force  of  some  favorite  conception  of  my  own 
till  Mrs.  Young  had  given  it  back  to  me  —  I  am  referring  even 
more  to  association  with  her  as  a  colleague  than  when  she  was 
a  student.  And  as  I  have  already  intimated,  she  generally 
assumed  as  a  matter  of  course  that  I  had  the  point  in  mind  from 
the  start.    I  can  give  two  examples. 

I  think  what  Mrs.  Young  chiefly  got  from  her  philosophic 
courses  was  an  intellectual  systematized  justification  of  her  prac- 
tical and  experimental  belief  in  and  respect  for  the  intellectual 
procedures  of  the  pupil  as  a  pupil.  I  have  to  confess  that  I  had 
never  appreciated  this  aspect  of  my  own  logical  theory  till  I 
found  it  so  emphasized  by  her.  Putting  it  in  another  way,  it 
was  from  her  that  I  learned  that  freedom  and  respect  for  free- 
dom mean  regard  for  the  inquiring  or  reflective  processes  of 
individuals,  and  that  what  ordinarily  passes  for  freedom  — 
freedom  from  external  restraint,  spontaneity  in  expression, 
etc. — are  of  significance  only  in  their  connection  with  thinking 
operations. 

The  other  point  is  this.  I  hardly  ever  have  seen  anybody 
who  had  such  an  habitual  and  keen  sense  of  the  influence  of 
one  person's  associations  with  others  upon  mental  habits  as 
had  Mrs.  Young.  And  I  have  never  seen  any  one  with  such  a 
keen  sense  of  it  as  applied  to  classroom  procedure  —  the  reflex 
effect  of  the  teacher's  habits  upon  the  pupil  in  all  kinds  of  subtle 
but  pervasive  ways.  As  a  consequence,  her  sense  of  intellectual 
life  as  a  "  give  and  take  "  process  was  practically  instinctive. 

I  owe  chiefly  to  association  with  Mrs.  Young  the  depth  of 
my  conviction  that  all  psychology  which  isn't  physiological  is 
social.  And  this  leads  me  to  add  a  third  point.  Mrs.  Young's 
experience  in  teaching  had  forced  home  to  her  the  importance 
of  the  mental  and  moral  influence  of  physical  and  organic  condi- 
tions. At  the  same  time  she  had  her  enormous  faith  in  spirit, 
i.e.,  the  act  of  thinking,  of  reflection. 

In  general,  I  should  say  that  I  have  hardly  known  anyone 
who  made  the  effect  of  genuine  intellectual  development  the 
test  and  criterion  of  the  value  of  everj'thing  as  much  as  she. 
I  have  known  but  one  other  person — also  a  woman: — who 
so  consistently  reflected  upon  her  experiences,  digested  them, 
turned  them  Into  significance  or  meanings  for  future  use.  Her 
readiness,  her  intuitions  in  dealing  with  new  situations,  were 
not  the  result  of  falling  back   (as  administrators  are  wont  to 


122  -        Ella  Flagg  Young 

do)  upon  preformed  practical  habits  or  by  continued  medita- 
tion and  turning  over  in  mind,  into  a  net  meaning  special  prece- 
dents, but  of  the  translation  of  prior  experience.  Thus  her 
experience  was  at  her  finger  tips  when  needed.  I  often  think 
that  Roosevelt's  knowledge  of  politics  is  the  only  analogue  of 
Mrs.  Young's  knowledge  of  educational  matters  with  which 
I  am  acquainted.  And  I  should  be  inclined  to  guess  that  the 
latter's  was  the  more  reflective  of  the  two.  Her  belief  in  mind, 
in  spirit,  in  thinking,  and  her  consequent  belief  in  freedom  for 
teacher  and  pupil,  were  consonant  with  her  personal  practice. 


CHAPTER  IX 

ADMINISTRATION  OF  THE  CITY  NORMAL  SCHOOL 

Tj^ROM  the  University  Mrs.  Young  left  for  a  year  of 
■*■  travel  and  study  abroad,  carrying  into  effect  the 
plan  she  had  given  up  some  years  before.  This  was 
not  her  first  trip  abroad.  On  two  former  occasions  she 
had  made  trips  to  Europe  during  the  summer  holidays. 
In  this  trip,  however,  she  went  leisurely  through  many 
of  the  European  countries:  England,  Scotland,  and 
Wales ;  she  studied  schools  in  France,  Germany,  Switz- 
erland, and  Italy.  She  was  not  only  busy  with  schools 
and  study  of  life  and  history  in  these  countries,  but  she 
kept  in  touch  with  Chicago  through  an  extensive  corre- 
spondence. Her  friends  in  Chicago  continually  sup- 
plied her  with  newspaper  clippings  on  political  and 
educational  affairs  in  the  city,  and  in  addition  wrote 
what  came  within  their  own  experiences.  When  she 
returned  at  the  end  of  her  year  she  was  up  to  date  in 
affairs  of  the  schools  as  fully  as  if  she  had  been  at 
home. 

Soon  after  her  return  from  Europe  Mrs.  Young  was 
asked  by  the  superintendent  of  schools  to  take  the 
principalship  of  the  Normal,  which  at  that  time  was 
'  left  vacant  by  the  death  of  Arnold  Tompkins.  She 
accepted  the  offer  and  took  up  her  work  at  the  opening 
of  school  in  September,  1905,  six  years  after  having 
severed  her  connection  with  the  city  schools.  Like  other 
positions  which  she  had  occupied,  this  one  came  un- 
sought, but,  like  them  also,  it  found  her  fully  prepared 

123 


124  Elia  Flagg  Young 

to  do  the  work  required.  A  careful  study  of  the  records 
of  the  school  during  her  four  years  of  service  shows 
the  power  of  her  personality  and  the  breadth  of  her 
grasp  of  education  in  city  and  nation. 

It  may  be  important  to  note  casually  the  history  of 
the  institution  of  which  Mrs.  Young  was  made  prin- 
cipal. As  a  county  normal,  and  for  some  years  after 
it  was  taken  over  by  the  city,  the  school  had  been  under 
the  management  of  Francis  W.  Parker.  It  had  attained 
a  wide  reputation  during  this  time  as  a  school  of  ad- 
vanced ideas  and  practices.  Following  Parker  the 
work  was  taken  up  by  Arnold  Tompkins,  whose  doc- 
trines of  education  were  based  on  idealistic  conceptions 
which  had  much  to  do  with  keeping  the  school  on  a 
high  plane  of  accomplishment.  Under  the  leadership 
of  these  men  "The  Child"  had  been  apotheosized. 
More  emphasis  had  been  placed  upon  the  ideal  aspects 
of  education  than  upon  the  education  of  children  as 
they  really  existed  in  street  and  tenement  of  the  city. 
Under  such  conceptions  of  education  the  Chicago 
Normal  School  had  come  to  occupy  an  almost  inde- 
pendent place  as  a  college  apart  from  a  great  city 
system,  its  faculty  and  course  of  study  developed  from 
ideal  scholastic  considerations.  The  superintendent  Is 
reported  to  have  said  in  1902  that  after  having  given 
an  address  to  the  school  on  its  responsibilities  to  the 
city  members  of  the  faculty  held  an  indignation  meet- 
ing because  of  his  suggestion. 

That  an  effort  was  being  made  by  the  Normal  School 
and  the  superintendent  to  bridge  this  gap  between 
theory  and  practice  may  be  seen  by  the  report  of  the 
superintendent  in  1903. 


Administratioti  of  Normal  School  125 

During  the  past  year  the  Normal  School  has  been  brought 
into  closer  connection  with  the  work  of  the  elementary  schools 
than  ever  before.  The  heads  of  the  various  departments  have 
visited  the  elementary  school,  have  worked  with  the  committee 
of  principals  in  preparing  courses  of  study  and  selecting  material 
for  work,  and  have  conducted  most  of  the  institutes  given  to 
the  elementary  teachers,  besides  working  in  the  Normal  exten- 
sion classes.  .  .  .  The  Normal  School  faculty  are  sure  to  acquire 
a  more  complete  knowledge  of  the  school  situation  in  Chicago, 
and  to  be  thereby  the  better  prepared  to  undertake  the  work  of 
training  teachers.  .  .  .  The  increase  in  the  responsibilities  of 
the  Normal  School  must  inevitably  lead  to  the  employment  of  a 
very  high  grade  of  teachers  there.  The  instructor  who  has 
merely  a  book  knowledge  of  academic  and  professional  studies, 
and  who  might  succeed  in  giving  graduates  of  the  high  school  a 
knowledge  of  educational  theory,  cannot  successfully  stand  the 
test  of  undertaking  the  instruction  of  trained  and  experienced 
teachers  in  the  city  schools. 

In  a  school  of  this  sort,  under  the  control  of  men 
with  strong  ideas,  there  is  always  the  danger  that  the 
faculty  may  become  indoctrinated  and  thus  merely 
exponents  of  particular  theories  and  points  of  view. 
A  school  dominated  by  a  personality  and  a  highly  indi- 
vidual philosophy  of  education  may  become  effective 
within  a  limited  and  a  preconceived  realm  of  work, 
but  it  is  probably  not  qualified  to  meet  the  needs  of  a 
cosmopolitan  city. 

When  Mrs.  Young  entered  the  Normal  School  she 
found  a  faculty  thus  developed,  and  one  of  her  most 
difficult  tasks  was  to  break  through  the  crust  of  philo- 
sophical and  educational  doctrines  dominant  at  the 
time.  That  she  should  succeed  in  completely  remaking 
a  faculty,  with  new  outlook  and  more  independent  con- 
trol, was  too  much  to  expect  in  a  period  of  four  years, 
but  that  she  did  improve  matters  is  beyond  question. 


126  Ella  Flagg  Young 

From  "ler  first  day  as  principal  she  offended  the  sense 
of  many  members  of  the  faculty  by  refusing  to  state  in 
some  concise  way  "her  point  of  view,"  her  philosophy 
of  educv-^ion.  From  bitter  experience  with  the  futil- 
ity of  c^ese  statements  she  refused  to  make  any  such 
formulations,  *'  for,"  said  she,  *'  all  that  people  desire 
me  to  Jo  is  to  give  them  some  stock  phrases  which 
they  can  use  on  all  occasions  instead  of  doing  their 
own  thinking."  Her  patience  was  tried  by  the  con- 
tinued appeal  to  "the  pedagogical  child,"  and  finally 
she  resorted  to  sarcasm  and  sharp  words  to  have  ideas 
and  ideals  of  real  children  dominant  in  faculty  dis- 
cussions. 

During  her  work  as  principal  of  the  Normal  School 
Mrs.  Young,  unlike  her  predecessors,  refused  to  become 
the  mentor  of  her  school,  and  demanded  free  and  inde- 
pendent judgment  on  the  part  of  both  faculty  and  stu- 
dents. A  characteristic  statement  of  this  demand  is 
taken  from  minutes  of  a  faculty  meeting: 

It  is  the  desire  of  the  principal  to  consult  freely  with  members 
of  the  faculty  concerning  matters  about  which  there  are  any 
questions,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  when  persons  are  appointed  to 
work  out  plans  in  committee  or  otherwise,  they  should  not  expect 
the  principal  to  formulate  a  plan  so  that  the  report  will  be  from 
the  principal  rather  than  the  true  representative  belief  of  the 
committee.  A  faculty  meeting  which  consists  merely  in  endors- 
ing something  propounded  by  a  member  of  the  faculty  or  by  the 
principal,  is  no  faculty  meeting  at  all.  The  faculty  meeting 
should  be  a  place  for  free  discussion  of  all  objections.  Objec- 
tions need  not  be  thrown  out  in  a  combative  way,  and  objections 
need  not  be  entered  only  when  doubts  are  felt ;  but  when  any 
proposition  is  not  thoroughly  understood  it  should  be  expressed 
in  the  meeting.  Our  attention  is  often  misdirected :  we  are  apt 
to  ask  ourselves  what  is  wanted,  rather  than  what  should  be. 


/Administration  of  Normal  School  127 

In  another  connection  she  says: 

There  is  danger  of  the  departments  of  the  College  outlining 
the  work  in  such  a  way  that  the  critic  teachers  will  become 
mere  agents  of  the  departments.  It  must  rather  be  cooperative. 
In  the  last  few  years  many  changes  have  been  talked  about,  and 
most  teachers  can  speak  fluently  of  developing  the  subject-matter 
in  a  natural  way,  but,  in  really  doing  the  thing,  the  same  old 
formal  work  exists,  and  the  only  change  is  in  the  close  relation- 
ship between  teacher  and  child. 

Intellectual  freedom  meant  more  than  the  formal 
recognition  of  the  right  of  a  person  to  speak  on  ques- 
tions. In  discussing  educational  principles  in  the  faculty 
at  one  time  it  had  been  necessary  to  drop  the  plan 
already  formulated,  because  "the  mixture  of  elements 
is  so  diverse  among  the  individuals  of  the  faculty  that 
there  are  some  who  know  the  whole  subject  and  can 
talk  glibly  on  it;  and  these  individuals,  by  their  assert- 
ive form  of  argument,  shut  off  discussion  before  the 
matter  was  well  started." 

Students  were  to  have  the  same  freedom  in  their 
judgment  and  work  as  members  of  the  faculty.  Mrs. 
Young  was  afraid  that  supervising  teachers  might  inter- 
view the  student-teachers  more  frequently  than  neces- 
sary. She  said  it  would  be  better  for  the  students  not 
to  feel  that  teachers  were  continually  trying  to  improve 
them.  Students  would  be  better  off  if  they  were  not 
spoken  to  every  day  about  their  work,  but  in  this  matter 
the  critic  teacher  was  to  feel  free  to  use  her  judg- 
ment. In  another  connection  she  points  out  that  the 
student-teacher  is  not  a  child  and  must  be  accorded 
consideration  due  her  power  to  assume  responsibility. 
She  is  to  be  considered  for  the  time  being  as  the  teacher 
of  the  room,  and  must  be  given  the  same  support 


128  Ella  Flagg  Young 

and  encouragement  as  the  regular  teacher.  Student- 
teachers  go  to  their  work  with  the  benefit  of  academic 
and  pedagogical  instruction,  and  do  not  go  as  "  girls," 
but  as  "  if  they  had  something  important  to  deliver  for 
which  they  are  responsible  teachers."  This  attitude 
can  only  be  obtained  by  treating  the  students  with  the 
spirit  that  goes  with  that  of  the  teacher.  She  took  the 
position  in  regard  to  the  college  teacher  and  critic 
supervisors  of  practice  students  that  the  same  custom 
should  obtain  in  the  schoolrooms  that  governs  the  inter- 
course of  well-bred  people  outside  the  school:  that  for 
two  supervisors  to  discuss  a  student-teacher  in  the  room 
where  she  was  teaching  a  class  would  be  an  exhibition 
of  rudeness  and  ill-breeding  that  would  not  be  tolerated 
in  well-bred  society;  that  to  discuss  a  child's  mentality 
in  his  presence  and  the  presence  of  classmates  was 
unpardonable;  that  to  mention  the  poverty  or  wealth,' 
the  home  conditions,  the  physical  peculiarities,  or  any 
handicap  In  such  a  way  that  the  child  knew  the  remark 
referred  to  him,  showed  either  a  lack  of  judgment  or 
an  unsympathetic  nature  in  the  speaker. 

In  one  of  the  faculty  meetings  Mrs.  Young  discussed 
Individual  differences  and  the  necessity  of  giving  oppor- 
tunity to  each  one  to  grow  in  his  own  way.  Teachers 
tend  to  usurp  the  power  of  the  child  to  grow.  They 
have  little  faith  in  his  native  Impulses  to  grow  in  the 
right  direction,  therefore  they  spend  too  much  time 
teaching  and  directing. 

Some  consider  it  necessary  only  to  plant  the  germs  of  thought 
in  such  a  way  that  the  individual  student  can  tend  their  growth 
according  to  his  own  needs,  while  other  teachers  think  it  neces- 
sary to  stop  and  tend  the  growth  of  each  germ  planted,  leaving 


Administration   of  Normal  School  129 

little  for  the  individual  to  do.  Probably  it  might  be  well  to  cut 
down  the  length  of  time  for  recitation  and  attempt  to  do  more 
germ  planting. 

Her  attempt  to  throw  upon  others  the  responsibility 
for  thinking  and  for  formulating  each  his  own  doctrine 
of  education  was  only  one  of  her  alms  in  the  school. 
Year  after  year  she  persisted  In  her  endeavor  to  bring 
the  school  Into  harmony  with  the  needs  of  the  city.  As 
already  pointed  out,  the  policy  of  the  school  had  been 
undergoing  a  transformation  during  the  previous  year 
or  two,  but  no  one  had  ever  been  In  the  school  who 
understood  the  needs  of  the  city  as  did  Mrs.  Young. 
In  each  of  her  reports  to  the  superintendent  she  strikes 
at  some  phase  of  this  problem.  In  1907  she  says  the 
elementary-training  course  has  a  double  duty,  the  first 
being  the  preparation  of  students  to  teach  every  subject 
in  an  elementary  school,  and  the  second  being  a  neces- 
sity to  give  students  opportunities  to  go  ahead  along 
some  line  of  special  Interest.  The  course  prepared  had 
both  required  subjects  to  meet  the  former  need,  and 
elective  subjects  to  provide  for  the  second.  In  1908  she 
is  more  explicit  In  her  views  of  the  relationship  between 
the  Normal  School  and  the  city: 

For  many  years  it  was  the  custom  of  the  Chicago  Normal 
School  to  conduct  its  practice  work  upon  outlines  of  study  pre- 
pared by  the  several  departments  of  the  College.  While  much 
might  be  said  in  favor  of  this  plan,  it  unconsciously  creates  in 
the  student  body  an  attitude  of  depreciation  toward  the  course 
of  study  in  use  in  the  city  system.  If  there  are  deficiencies  in 
the  course  of  study  for  the  city  which  time  will  make  plain  — 
and  doubtless  there  are  —  the  Normal  School  should  carefully 
analyze  them  and  suggest  to  the  superintendent  the  best  reme- 
dies for  them,  and  so  develop  a  closer  relation  between  the  pre- 
paratory work  of   the   student   and   their  work   as   teachers. 


130  Ella  Flagg  Young 

Following  this  line  of  thought,  the  regular  course  of  study  for 
the  city  has  been  made  the  guide  for  the  practice  schools. 

It  is  doubtless  evident  from  her  emphasis  upon  this 
relationship  between  the  Normal  and  the  city  schools 
that  one  of  the  first  undertakings  of  Mrs.  Young  would 
be  that  of  the  course  of  study  in  the  Normal  Itself. 
Each  year  she  Injected  new  questions  and  suggestions 
and  set  new  committees  to  work  on  special  problems 
in  connection  with  It  Work  which  she  had  striven  years 
to  get  into  the  elementary  school  as  an  assistant  super- 
intendent she  now  found  possible  to  give  as  preparation 
for  the  young  teachers  of  city  children.  Nature  study, 
art — both  graphic  and  Industrial — English,  and  music 
were  the  objects  of  most  careful  reconstruction  and 
improvement. 

In  respect  to  nature  study,  increased  demands  In 
the  course  of  study  for  the  elementary  schools  gave  her 
an  opportunity  to  effect  much-needed  reforms  in  the 
teaching  of  that  subject — in  fact,  a  double  opportunity. 
In  order  that  the  Normal  School  might  be  able  to  pre- 
pare teachers  adequately  for  the  new  demands  an 
Important  change  was  made  in  Its  course.  The  required 
major  In  science  which  had  before  been  Interpreted  as 
a  major  In  physics  or  biology  was  now  divided  equally 
between  physics  and  biology.  Reformns  equally  appar- 
ent In  the  nature-study  outlines  that  began  to  be  issued. 
Emphasis  was  placed  upon  the  scientific  character  of 
the  material  and  mode  of  approach,  and  upon  the  kind 
of  courses  of  most  value  for  children  in  the  city.  All 
work  In  nature  study  was  organized  to  take  the  form 
of  occupations  for  children.  Work  with  plants  and 
animals  and  with  physical  and  chemical  materials  was 


Administration  of  Normal  School  131 

put  within  reach  of  the  grades,  giving  opportunity  for 
study  in  the  school  garden  and  for  experiments  with 
electricity.  A  definite  attempt  was  made  to  use  the 
activities  of  other  departments,  particularly  along  the 
line  of  construction. 

To  effect  improvement  in  the  conditions  of  English 
teaching  in  the  schools  Mrs.  Young  had  recourse  to  a 
drastic  move.  She  cut  in  two  the  classes  in  English  in 
the  Normal  School.  Each  department,  moreover,  was 
asked  to  contribute,  through  conferences  and  commit- 
tees, to  the  improvement  of  English.  Mrs.  Young  her- 
self studied  the  English  in  use  in  the  practice  schools. 
Her  report  in  1907  foreshadows  her  introduction  into 
the  schools,  several  years  later,  of  special  teachers  for 
defective  speech.    She  says: 

A  command  of  the  mother  tongue  should  be  a  sine  qua  non 
of  every  young  man  and  young  woman  receiving  a  diploma  from 
a  normal  school.  Children  with  slovenly  enunciation  and 
incorrect  and  meager  English  pass  from  the  elementary  into  the 
high  school,  and  with  but  slight  improvement  graduate  into 
the  normal  school,  and  finally,  with  some  advance  but  with 
the  careless,  defective  speech  still  characteristic,  from  the  normal 
into  the  teaching  corps. 

In  relating  the  graphic  to  the  manual  arts  Mrs. 
Young  exerted  a  most  marked  influence  in  the  school.  An 
incident  of  her  first  year  illustrates  how  fully  she  appre- 
ciated the  value  of  good  work  and  was  determined  to 
secure  it.  Some  window-boxes  made  by  students  in  a 
manual-training  class  had  been  placed  in  a  conspicuous 
place  in  the  building.  They  evidently  represented  poor 
workmanship.  Upon  request  for  an  explanation  for 
the  display  of  such  work  she  was  told  that  it  represented 
the  efforts  of  the  students.    "Take  them  down,"  she 


132  Ella  Flagg  Young 

said;  "things  here  should  have  beauty  as  well  as  use." 
Her  efforts  at  getting  beauty  into  construction  necessi- 
tated a  reorganization  of  the  art  department  and  the 
bringing  in  of  people  who  had  notions  in  this  direction 
and  competency  to  put  them  into  practice.  In  her  report 
to  the  superintendent  for  1907  she  says: 

To  render  efficient  service  in  helping  solve  the  problem  of  early 
training  for  the  eye  and  the  hand,  leading  to  a  training  in  the 
technique  of  different  arts  and  industries,  the  departments  of 
the  graphic,  the  manual,  and  the  industrial  arts  in  the  Normal 
School  have  made  a  determined  and,  it  is  hoped,  an  intelligent 
effort  to  work  in  cooperation.  It  has  been  said  that  to  propose 
a  scheme  of  cooperation  of  artists  is  to  launch  oneself  on  a 
stormy  sea,  but  in  this  instance  the  teachers  of  art,  manual  train- 
ing and  construction  in  the  college  and  practice  schools  were 
highly  cooperative,  not  because  they  were  trying  to  work 
amicably,  but  because  of  a  comprehensive  grasp  of  their  prob- 
lems. In  present  conditions,  however,  there  are  difficulties 
almost  insurmountable.  The  chief  obstacle  lies  in  our  limited 
knowledge  of  the  beginnings  of  art  in  the  immature  mind.  A 
fondness  for  using  the  hand  and  for  bright-colored  material  in 
making  things  does  not,  perforce,  develop  the  artistic  sense.  It 
may  lead  to  a  pagan  form  of  art  such  as  that  of  the  American 
Indian.  Yet,  notwithstanding  a  strong  feeling  that  the  problem 
is  still  before  us,  the  departments  prepared  and  printed,  in 
June,  1907,  an  "arts  course"  which  testifies  to  the  gain  arising 
from  the  harmonious  work  of  the  different  arts. 

Of  the  teachers  she  had  selected  she  speaks,  in  1909 : 

This  school  is  fortunate  in  having  for  teachers  of  arts  those  who 
are  each  intimate  with  the  subject  matter  of  their  special  arts', 
and  are  also  clear  as  to  the  blending  of  individuality  and  social 
service  that  must  inspire  the  ideal  and  its  realization  if  that* 
art  is  to  be  of  genuine  worth  to  the  schools  of  the  city  and  to 
education.  In  physical  education  effort  has  been  directed  toward 
that  higher  degree  of  sure,  graceful  control  of  the  body  which 
increases  health  and  the  power  of  endurance.  In  musical  educa- 
tion  the   acquaintance   with   good   music   has   been   enlarged; 


Administration  of  Normal  School  133 

meanwhile  note-reading,  technique,  and  interpretation  have  been 
developed  beyond  the  standard  of  chorus  singing  only.  The 
things  constructively  and  decoratively  designed  in  the  depart- 
ment of  graphic  arts,  and  made  in  the  departments  of  manual 
and  industrial  arts,  bear  testimony  to  the  continuous  endeavor  to 
combine  skill  and  the  artistic  in  every  product. 

Departments  of  the  college  were  made  responsible 
for  the  educational  bearing  of  their  courses.  In  this 
respect  Mrs.  Young's  work  was  distinctively  profes- 
sional and  pedagogical  and  produced  most  marked  re- 
sults. Each  head  of  a  department  was  required  to  give 
a  "special  method"  course  to  students  practicing  in 
his  particular  subject,  and  in  this  course  he  advised 
students  as  to  the  work  in  the  grades.  The  plans  of  stu- 
dents for  their  teaching  thus  came  to  be  Influenced 
directly  by  the  college  department.  In  addition  to  this 
arrangement  the  courses  in  general  psychology  and 
education  were  changed.  General  psychology  was 
added  to  the  curriculum,  and  gradually  the  amount  of 
time  given  to  it  was  lengthened.  A  course  In  the  prin- 
ciples of  education  took  the  place  of  an  older  course 
in  the  Ideals  and  the  history  of  pedagogy.  Mrs.  Young 
herself  taught  classes  In  what  she  called  "The  School," 
meaning  by  It  the  practical,  social  bearing  of  the  sub- 
ject. She  also  gave  a  course  In  practical  ethics  to  the 
freshmen.  She  saw  to  it  that  students  were  trained 
both  in  theoretical  and  practical  ethics,  a  "mark"  in 
social  efficiency  attesting  the  latter  aspect  of  the  train- 
ing. Conduct  of  student  and  teacher  came  to  take  the 
place  of  a  theoretical  consideration  about  "the  child" 
or  "  the  school."  In  order  that  full  opportunity  might 
be  given  students  to  gain  a  practical  Insight  Into  teach- 
ing, Mrs.  Young  reconstructed  practice  schools,  select- 


134  Ella  Flagg  Young 

ing  for  the  purpose  typical  schools  of  the  city.  She 
dropped  a  school  in  an  American  district  and  took  up 
one  where  foreign  children  predominated,  in  order  that 
students  in  practice  might  understand  one  of  the  big 
problems  of  the  city,  with  the  result  that  "  an  encourag- 
ing element  amid  the  difficulties  of  the  situation  is  that 
the  faculty,  in  its  endeavor  to  make  the  Normal  School 
an  efficient  force  in  the  city,  is  brought  closer  than 
before  to  the  problems  confronting  cities  in  America." 
In  short,  in  every  department  such  reorganization  of 
courses  took  place.  Mrs.  Young's  effort  everywhere 
was  to  make  the  work  fit  the  needs  of  teachers  entering 
the  city  schools  and  at  the  same  time  serve  to  stimulate 
students  to  further  educational  efforts.  Her  ideal  was 
that  of  efficiency  in  practical  teaching.  Actuated  by 
modern  educational  theory  based  on  science,  she  in- 
sisted that  teachers  understand  the  problems  of  educa- 
tion and  the  needs  of  the  city  in  particular,  and  then 
be  trained  to  execute  their  ideas  in  practice.  Her  feel- 
ing of  responsibility  of  the  Normal  School  for  ideals 
to  be  applied  in  the  city  was  expressed  clearly  in  her 
speech  at  the  dedication  of  the  new  college  building 
in  1906. 

The  ideals  of  well-warmed,  well-ventilated,  and  well-kept 
school  buildings,  developed  by  the  conditions  in  this  Normal 
School  must  be  effective  in  the  various  schools  to  which  its 
graduates  are  assigned.  The  care  of  materials  used  in  class 
teaching  in  the  college  and  the  practice  schools  affects  the  atti- 
tude of  the  student  body  toward  the  means  furnished  by  the 
city  for  the  use  of  pupils  and  teachers  in  making  the  work  of  the 
school  concrete. 

When  Mrs.  Young  entered  the  Normal  School  she 
found  the  practice  work  in  charge  of  a  general  super- 


Administration  of  Normal  School  135 

visor  or  head  critic.  She  found  that  many  of  the 
teachers  in  the  college  never  visited  their  students  in 
the  practice  school.  Students  in  practice  were  respon- 
sible primarily  to  the  head  critic,  and  wherever  any 
conflict  arose  between  college  department  work  and  the 
classroom  teaching  in  the  practice  schools  the  college 
department  was  ignored.  In  order  to  make  the  in- 
structors of  the  college  responsible  for  the  bearings  of 
their  own  teaching  she  set  about  to  reorganize  this 
condition.  In  the  first  place  she  required  that  plans 
prepared  by  students  for  their  class  work  in  the  practice 
schools  should  go  to  college  instructors  for  approval 
as  well  as  to  critic  teachers.  At  her  first  faculty  meeting 
on  entering  the  school  she  brought  up  this  matter  in  the 
form  of  questions  which  led  to  the  reorganization. 

Should  the  lesson  plan  be  corrected  by  the  critic  teacher  only, 
or  is  the  college  faculty  to  be  considered  in  the  criticism  of 
plans?  What  is  the  point  of  union  between  the  college  and  the 
critic  department?  Is  the  college  to  teach  certain  subject-matter 
without  in  any  way  ripening  the  knowledge  of  the  critic  depart- 
ment? Is  the  critic  department  to  teach  the  pupils  without  in 
any  way  affecting  the  experience  of  the  college  instructors  in 
adapting  the  subject-matter  to  the  pupils? 

Likewise,  marking  the  success  of  students  In  practice 
was  thrown  upon  the  joint  judgment  of  college  In- 
structor, critic  teacher,  and  practice  principal  rather 
than  the  Individual  judgment  of  the  head  critic.  Finally 
the  head  critic  was  replaced  by  the  departments  of  the 
college  as  supervisors  of  work  In  the  practice  schools. 
The  tendency  of  this  arrangement  was  to  make  the 
departments  responsible  for  the  outcome  In  practice  of 
their  teaching  In  classroom,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to 
emphasize  the   departmental  idea   and  organization. 


136  Ella  Flagg  Young 

Administration  of  a  highly  departmentalized  school  so 
as  to  keep  work  evenly  balanced  in  the  practice  school 
is  much  more  difficult  than  it  had  been  where  the  entire 
responsibility  for  supervision  rested  upon  the  head 
critic.  During  Mrs.  Young*s  administration  of  the 
school  she  succeeded  in  bringing  about  harmony  among 
the  various  departments  so  that  their  supervision  of  the 
practice  work  was  at  all  times  effective. 

Practice-school  work  was  to  Mrs.  Young  a  constant 
problem  and  study.  To  keep  the  entire  system  of  inter- 
ests in  practice  schools  and  college  together  was  on  her 
mind  always.  She  regarded  the  name  "  practice  school " 
as  unfortunate.  She  insisted  that  it  was  misleading  to 
understand  this  school  as  one  to  ^hich  students  added 
nothing  and  in  which  they  practiced  or  experimented 
"  hit  or  miss "  with  classes  of  children. 

No  greater  contradiction  could  be  found  than  the  identifica- 
tion of  mediocre  practice  schools  with  advanced  methods  and 
ideals  of  teaching.  It  would  be  parallel  with  the  futile  attempts 
made  sometimes  in  the  endeavor  to  cultivate  in  children  a  nice 
perception  of  the  quality  of  harmony  of  musical  tones  through 
practice  on  instruments  that  have  lost  their  tone  and  are  out 
of  tune. 

She  assumed  it  as  her  first  duty  as  principal  of  such  a 
school  to  effect  an  organization  of  forces  that  would 
develop  a  high  degree  of  cooperation  between  all  the 
various  parts  and  with  the  schools  of  the  city.  She  was 
fully  aware  that  it  was  possible  for  each  division  of  the 
Normal  School  to  move  along,  using  the  language  of 
cooperation  and  social  efficiency,  and  yet  committing 
itself  to  isolated  details  which  were  not  the  true  embodi- 
ment of  the  normal-school  ideal.     "A  comprehensive 


Administration  of  Normal  School  137 

view  of  the  Normal  School  and  its  fullest  life  can  be 
founded  on  a  true  social  life  only  —  a  life  involving  a 
*  give  and  take '  activity  of  all  divisions." 

Mrs.  Young  never  forgot  the  personal  interests  and 
welfare  of  her  teachers  and  her  students.  In  the  old 
.Normal  Training  Class,  formed  while  she  was  assistant 
superintendent,  she  secured  pay  for  the  students  sub- 
stituting in  order  that  they  might  partly  defray  their 
expenses  in  traveling  about  the  city  to  the  schools  in 
which  they  went  to  work.  When  she  came  to  the 
Normal  School  as  principal  she  found  much  being  made 
of  the  general  assembly  hall.  From  two  to  four  in  the 
afternoon  of  each  day  students  met  here  for  their  study 
of  lessons  for  the  next  day.  The  arrangement  which 
brought  a  great  crowd  together  without  the  direct  influ- 
ence of  any  one  in  particular  was  by  no  means  pleasing 
to  Mrs.  Young,  and  she  set  about  ridding  the  school 
of  it.  In  doing  so  she  arranged  for  the  school  to  close 
its  afternoon  session  at  two,  thus  releasing  many  stu- 
dents coming  from  distant  parts  of  the  city  which  had 
compelled  them  to  travel  home  late  at  night.  By  cutting 
off  two  hours  at  the  close  of  each  day  she  was  com- 
pelled to  rearrange  the  hours  of  students  in  the  practice 
schools.  The  arrangement  was  made  for  all  teaching  to 
be  done  during  the  first  two  hours  of  the  morning  ses- 
sion in  the  practice  school,  thus  giving  the  regular  critic 
teacher  the  rest  of  the  day  to  handle  her  own  room  to 
the  satisfaction  of  parents  sending  their  children  to 
these  schools.  These  two  acts  of  shortening  the  day  of 
students  and  confining  practice  to  the  morning  hours  did 
more  to  add  efficiency  to  the  work  of  students  and 
faculty  than  any  other  act  of  her  administration. 


138  Ella  Flagg  Young 

In  1906,  departmental  work  was  introduced,  of 
which  she  says : 

a  successful  introduction  of  the  departmental  plan  was  made  in 
the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  grades  of  the  practice  schools.  The 
plan  is  vertical,  not  horizontal,  since  the  teaching  of  a  subject  in 
successive  sections  in  the  same  grade  is  even  more  stupefying 
than  that  of  instructing  in  every  subject  taught  in  the  grade. 
The  change  of  rooms  by  the  classes  affords  mental  and  physical 
rest  for  the  children.  The  establishment  of  a  room  as  the  head- 
quarters for  history,  or  art,  or  geography,  or  literature,  tends 
to  make  that  room  a  museum  and  library  of  the  subject  in  its 
elementary-school  phase. 

One  further  effort  of  Mrs.  Young  in  her  short  four 
years  at  the  Normal  School  deserves  attention.  She 
originated  and  edited,  with  the  aid  of  the  faculty,  the 
Educational  Bi-Monthly.  Her  ideal  in  this  magazine 
venture  was  twofold.  In  her  own  words,  "  the  maga- 
zine serves  as  a  clearing-house  for  those  who  are  work- 
ing along  special  lines,  and  also  as  a  means  for  con- 
veying to  teachers  some  of  the  latest  thoughts  on  the 
theory  of  education  and  on  subject-matter."  As  already 
pointed  out,  the  school  had  during  most  of  its  history 
been  dominated  by  the  theories  of  some  principal.  Mrs. 
Young  wished  the  faculty  to  become  independent  con- 
tributors to  educational  thought  and  work,  and  a 
magazine,  written  and  edited  as  well  as  pr'nted  by 
the  school,  would  serve  for  such  an  incentive  to  inde- 
pendence. The  continuation  and  growth  from  year  to 
year  of  the  magazine  is  evidence  of  whatever  of  value 
it  had  for  the  faculty  or  the  city  elementary  schools. 

In  addition  to  establishing  and  writing  for  the  Edu- 
cational Bi-Monthly,  the  only  literary  work  of  Mrs. 
Young  during  her  principalship  of  the  Normal  con- 


Administration  of  Normal  School  139 

sisted  in  reports  to  the  superintendent  and  addresses 
before  educational  bodies.  In  1907  she  delivered  be- 
fore the  National  Education  Association  an  address  on 
"The  educational  progress  of  two  years,  1905-1907." 
Her  discussion  of  persons  and  movements  in  social  and 
educational  institutions  showed  careful  reading  and 
deep  thinking.  She  was  clear  and  keen  in  her  discus- 
sion of  higher  education,  especially  on  the  relation  of 
college  and  university  to  the  individual.  She  quoted 
President  Wilson  of  Princeton  in  saying  the  "object  is 
to  get  the  college  instruction  into  the  lives  of  the  under- 
graduates." The  curricula  of  higher  institutions  showed 
a  more  liberal  attitude  than  formerly  toward  scientific 
study.  In  the  preparation  of  teachers  she  insists  that 
progress  in  professional  training  is  being  made.  Her 
faith  in  coordinating  vocation  and  academic  education 
under  one  roof  In  high  schools  foreshadowed  her  efforts 
some  years  later  in  fostering  "cosmopolitan"  high 
schools. 

Great  progress  is  reported  in  health  work  among  the 
schools  of  cities.  Likewise,  social  work  and  social 
responsibility  for  children  in  cities  are  reported  as 
growing.  Questions  of  advancement  of  salaries  of 
teachers,  consideration  of  freedom  of  teachers,  and 
output  of  educational  literature  are  dwelt  upon  at 
length.  On  one  of  these  questions  she  says:  "If  the 
public-school  system  is  to  meet  the  demands  which 
twentieth-century  civilization  would  lay  upon  it,  the 
isolation  of  the  great  body  of  teachers  from  adminis- 
tration of  the  schools  must  be  overcome."  With  this 
address,  and  particularly  with  the  sentence  quoted,  it  is 
evident  that  Mrs.  Young  had  carried  her  doctrine  of 


140  Ella  Flagg  Young 

the  freedom  of  teachers  much  farther  than  when  she 
resigned  from  the  district  superintendency  and  was  pre- 
pared to  take  up  administration  on  this  platform  should 
opportunity  offer. 

At  a  conference  on  "Secondary  Education"  at 
Oberlin  College,  June  19,  1908,  Mrs.  Young  gave  an 
address  on  the  subject,  "Reciprocal  relations  between 
the  subject  matters  in  secondary  education."  {Educa- 
tional Bi-Monthly,  vol.  Ill,  pp.  75-84.)  She  discusses 
recent  tendencies  in  industrial  education  in  high  schools 
which  she  says  seem  to  foster  a  caste  system  in  educa- 
tion. A  statement  of  the  history  of  efforts  to  unify  the 
curriculum  of  the  schools  shows  that  the  efforts  were 
expended  mainly  on  elementary  schools,  leaving  second- 
ary education  untouched.  The  tendency  in  high-school 
teaching  has  been  to  keep  courses  narrow  and  segre- 
gated, so  that  experience  gained  in  one  subject  was  not 
consciously  made  to  function  in  other  lines  of  endeavor. 
A  paragraph  from  the  address  will  show  how  the 
author  attempts  to  give  life  and  unity  to  the  elements 
of  the  course. 

There  must  be  some  standard  by  which  the  value  of  the 
academic  work  can  be  tested,  and  in  that  test  the  duration  and 
effectiveness  of  the  knowledge  acquired  should  be  large  elements. 
If  the  power  to  use  anything  connected  with  a  subject  disappears 
soon  after  the  completion  of  the  work  in  it,  then  it  cannot  be 
that  the  study  gave  either  culture  or  discipline.  If  a  boy  is 
headed  toward  medicine  and  he  shuffles  off  everj^thing  learned 
in  geometry  and  yet  becomes  a  cultivated  man,  the  cultivation  is 
not  due  to  time  wasted  in  geometry.  If  a  girl  becomes  a  cul- 
tured woman  the  culture  is  not  due  to  time  spent  on  biology, 
long  since  forgotten.  The  fanciful  notion  that  things  of  which 
one  has  not  been  conscious,  or  that  generalizations  upon  which 
one  has  not  reflected,  influence  the  intellectual  and  moral  judg- 


Administration  of  Normal  School  141 

ments,  making  the  character  of  the  mind  and  of  the  individual 
truer,  is  not  based  on  any  data  that  will  stand  analysis.  Educa- 
tion is  activity  in  the  process  of  growth.  If  the  young  people 
in  the  secondary  stage  of  education  are  not  each  reinterpreting 
his  or  her  individual  experiences,  readjusting  knowledge  already 
gained,  to  new  and  broader  and  deeper  questions  that  arise  out 
of  conditions  peculiar  to  other  departments  of  systematized 
knowledge,  then  the  judgment  is  not  becoming  truer,  keener. 

Another  address  of  this  period,  given  before  the 
National  Education  Association,  at  Cleveland,  Ohio, 
in  1908,  was  called  "The  school  and  the  practice  of 
ethics."  In  this  address  the  plea  is  made  for  the  devel- 
opment of  ethics  through  the  "  cultivation  of  the  judg- 
ment of  values  In  conduct."  The  notion  one  must  ac- 
quire is  "that  character  develops  in  childhood  through 
the  exercise,  the  activity  of  the  ethical  judgment."  As 
in  all  forms  of  life,  Mrs.  Young  Insists  that  the  child 
grows  through  actually  doing  deeds  and  being  respon- 
sible for  his  own  conduct,  and  not  by  being  directed  In 
all  vital  matters  by  outsiders.  This  application  of 
ethical  teaching  is  In  line  with  the  author's  earlier 
treatise  on  the  subject  already  noticed. 

From  the  personal  standpoint  Mrs.  Young  took  her 
work  at  the  Normal  School  as  the  most  serious  business. 
She  felt  It  as  a  personal  obligation  to  see  that  principles 
and  habits  of  action  should  be  established  on  a  firm 
foundation.  At  the  same  time  she  Insisted  that  the 
Normal  School,  like  the  individual,  should  never  be- 
come a  closed  system.  There  should  always  be  openness 
to  conditions  In  the  changing  social  environment  com- 
bined with  a  flexibility  that  would  result  In  a  progressive 
adaptation  to  the  new.  The  school  should  have  that 
poise  which  comes  through  the  consciousness  of  a  "  rich 


142  Ella  Flagg  Young 

and  subtile  activity  In  enlarged  alms."  It  should  be 
abreast  of  the  best  thought  on  educational  theory  and 
practice.  The  men  and  women  In  its  college  and 
practice-school  faculty  should  be  strong  In  their  special 
work,  and  "the  principal  must  be  singularly  effective 
in  arousing  that  spontaneity  of  action  which  will  give 
an  upward  and  onward  movement  not  only  to  the  whole 
school  but  to  the  whole  school  system." 

As  In  all  other  positions  in  the  school  system,  Mrs. 
Young's  administration  of  the  Normal  School  was  fear- 
less and  positive.  She  was  always  outspoken  In  her 
convictions  and  did  not  hesitate  to  tell  the  Individual 
or  the  faculty  what  she  thought  on  questions  at  issue. 
She  was  so  bent  on  things  she  considered  worth  while 
that  she  spared  neither  herself  nor  others  who  were 
responsible  for  them.  Lack  of  willingness  to  devote 
one's  entire  energy  to  the  problems  and  the  welfare  of 
the  school  on  the  part  of  faculty  or  student  branded 
such  a  person  as  wanting  In  loyalty  to  the  cause. 
Toward  such  a  person  she  showed  neither  patience  nor 
sympathy,  often  indicating  her  disapproval  by  sharp 
and  blunt  word  or  rebuff.  She  acquired  among  many 
in  the  school  a  reputation  for  being  hard  because  of 
her  outspoken  attitude  toward  persons  who  seemed  to 
lack  loyalty  to  the  interests  of  the  school,  which  ab- 
sorbed her  entire  energy  and  time.  On  the  other  hand, 
she  encouraged  and  helped  most  graciously  and  ten- 
derly both  teacher  and  pupil  struggling  to  do  a  duty. 
For  independence,  for  initiative,  for  loyalty,  and  for 
devotion  to  the  school  shown  by  others,  her  most  active 
cooperation  was  never  wanting. 

Even  after  leaving  the  principalship  for  the  superin- 


Administration  of  Normal  School  143 

tendency  of  schools  she  kept  an  active  Interest  In  the 
Normal  School  and  appeared  on  the  platform  at  nearly 
every  commencement  exercise.  She  fostered  Its  work 
and  Its  Interests  to  the  very  end  of  her  official  connec- 
tion with  Chicago  schools. 


CHAPTER  X 

REORGANIZING  A  TIME-HONORED   INSTITUTION 

FOR  nearly  twenty-five  years  before  her  election  to 
the  superintendency  of  the  Chicago  schools,  Mrs. 
Young  had  been  taking  an  active  part  in  discussions 
and  deliberations  of  the  National  Education  Associa- 
tion. She  once  said:  "When  I  first  began  to  attend 
the  meetings  of  the  National  Education  Association 
women  were  permitted  to  sit  in  the  gallery  and  listen 
to  discussions  carried  on  by  the  men."  The  meeting 
referred  to  by  Mrs.  Young  in  this  statement  was  held 
at  Ogdensburg,  New  York,  in  1867,  the  year  that 
Mr.  W.  H.  Wells  was  president,  before  the  Associa- 
tion had  changed  its  name  to  a  national  organization. 
From  this  obscure  position  as  a  listener  to  an  active  par- 
ticipant in  affairs,  and  finally  to  the  most  prominent 
place  in  the  Association,  is  the  story  of  Mrs.  Young's 
rise  In  the  educational  world.  She  had  come  to  occupy 
a  place  in  the  intellectual  movements  of  the  country  as 
a  whole,  and  she  was  known  to  have  a  message  when- 
ever she  appeared  on  the  program  of  public  meetings. 
Her  progress  during  the  time  of  attendance  of  the 
National  Education  Association  kept  pace  with  the  rec- 
ognition of  women  In  affairs  of  the  country.  The  story 
of  this  progress  will  be  told  briefly  In  the  following 
pages. 

Mrs.  Young*s  first  appearance  as  a  speaker  on  the 
program  of  the  Association  was  at  the  Chicago  meet- 
ing in  1887.  At  that  time  she  spoke  on  the  topic, 
"How  to  teach  parents  to  discriminate  between  good 

144 


A   Time-Honored  Institution  145 

and  bad  teaching,"  a  subject  which  grew  immediately 
out  of  her  experience  as  a  principal  of  schools.  In 
1893  she  appeared  again  on  the  general  program  on 
"Grading  and  classification,"  showing  in  this  address 
the  tendency  in  the  schools  and  offering  suggestions 
which  she  was  trying  to  put  into  operation  as  assistant 
superintendent.  "Literature  in  elementary  schools" 
was  given  In  1896,  a  subject  on  which  she  had  been 
working  for  many  years.  It  is  interesting  to  note  in 
all  the  addresses  which  Mrs.  Young  made  on  various 
occasions  that  she  always  discussed  problems  in  which 
she  was  then  actively  engaged  in  the  schools.  In  1903 
she  talked  on  the  subject,  "  Saving  time  in  education." 
This  subject  had  its  origin  in  her  work  at  the  Univer- 
sity in  the  elementary  school.  Her  next  address  was 
given  in  1906,  a  year  after  she  became  head  of  the 
Chicago  Normal  School,  on  "  Influence  of  the  city 
normal  school  or  training  school,"  which  was  again 
an  expression  of  immediate  and  pressing  experience. 
In  1907  she  discussed  the  question  of  "The  proper 
articulation  of  technical  education,"  and  in  1908,  "The 
school  and  the  practice  of  ethics,"  and  also  "Utiliza- 
tion of  experience  in  home  environment." 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  Mrs.  Young  was  a  familiar 
figure  in  the  circles  of  the  Association.  Her  influence 
was  strongly  felt  along  the  lines  of  her  interest,  and 
people  had  come  to  have  a  high  degree  of  confidence 
in  her  ability  and  integrity.  That  she  took  for  her 
topics  of  discussion  in  all  her  formal  addresses  matters 
in  which  she  was  vitally  interested  was  in  itself  a  com- 
mendation of  her  sincerity  and  her  qualification  for 
leadership  in  educational  ideas.     Up  to  the  time  she 


146  Ella  Flagg  Young 

became  superintendent  of  schools  she  had  not  been  very 
influential  in  molding  the  policies  of  the  Association, 
though  she  was  a  well-known  figure  among  the  active 
membership. 

In  order  to  understand  the  influence  of  Mrs.  Young 
in  the  history  of  this  organization  it  is  necessary  to 
point  out  briefly  the  career  of  the  National  Education 
Association.  The  institution  is  almost  as  old  as  Mrs. 
Young's  work  in  the  schools  of  Chicago.  For  many 
years  it  struggled  along  with  only  a  small  membership, 
kept  in  existence  by  the  energy  of  a  few  leading  men 
in  the  service  of  the  schools.  By  and  by  its  member- 
ship grew  into  large  proportions  and  its  power  as  an 
organization  grew  at  the  same  time.  A  permanent 
fund  was  established  and  a  corporation  formed.  For 
several  years  many  important  investigations  were  un- 
dertaken and  reports  made  which  have  been  of  tre- 
mendous influence  in  the  schools  of  this  country.  The 
reports  of  the  "Committee  of  Ten"  and  the  "Com- 
mittee of  Fifteen,"  issued  during  the  nineties,  have  had 
the  most  widespread  influence.  After  a  time  the  policy 
of  the  Association  as  regards  investigations  seems  to 
have  changed,  and  the  money  of  the  institution  to  have 
been  conserved.  A  permanent  secretary  was  appointed, 
and  affairs  were  managed  by  a  board  of  trustees.  More 
and  more  power  was  taken  over  by  this  board,  until  the 
members  of  the  Association  had  little  to  say  about 
affairs  of  vital  import.  Investment  of  money  of  the 
corporation,  essential  matters  of  meetings  and  pro- 
grams, and  selection  of  officers,  while  ostensibly  in  the 
hands  of  the  members  of  the  Association,  were  in 
reality  in  the  hands  of  the  board  of  trustees. 


A   Time-Honored  Institution  147 

Out  of  this  arrangement  grew  a  very  powerful  body 
of  managers,  an  oligarchy,  controlling  the  Association. 
Opposed  to  its  growing  power  were  the  individuals  who 
believed  in  democratic  principles  of  government.  The 
consequence  was  that  there  grew  up  two  factions  in  the 
Association  and  occasional  "  revolts"  against  the  domi- 
nation of  the  board  of  trustees,  or  at  least  of  certain 
members  of  that  body,  in  the  management  of  the  Asso- 
ciation. One  writer,  opposed  to  the  board's  control, 
says: 

This  company  of  men  managed  matters  very  shrewdly.  They 
occasionally  placed  an  eminent  educator  in  the  presidency  of 
the  Association  and  took  pains  to  have  a  number  of  prominent 
men  and  women  upon  the  program  for  its  annual  meeting.  They 
kept  down  opposition  and  insurrection  by  the  usual  methods  of 
the  political  boss.  Objectors  were  usually  snubbed  and  rele- 
gated to  obscurity.  When  an  "  insurgent "  gathered  sufficient 
strength  to  promise  real  trouble  he  was  usually  "  seen,"  prob- 
ably given  an  office  or  taken  into  the  "  clan,"  and  the  revolt 
quelled.  The  "  good  "  were  rewarded  with  offices,  with  assign- 
ment to  committees  where  they  had  the  privilege  of  sitting 
beside  the  great  and  voting  "  right "  on  matters  presented,  and 
by  places  on  the  program.  A  study  of  the  programs  for  the 
past  years  will  repay  the  student  for  the  time  consumed,  and 
will  reveal  the  names  of  a  limited  number  of  these  "  faithful " 
appearing  regularly  on  the  platform  of  the  Association  in  com- 
pany with  the  distinguished  educational  speakers  who  were  also 
asked  to  appear. 

Before  19 10  there  had  been  several  minor  "  revolts," 
both  within  the  board  of  trustees  and  in  the  organiza- 
tion at  large.  A  notable  case  of  the  former  was  that 
led  by  Pearse,  of  Wisconsin,  against  the  action  of  cer- 
tain members  of  the  trustees  in  attempting  to  oust  him 
from  that  body.  His  success  and  the  notoriety  of  the 
case  formed  backbone  for  the  uprising  in  Boston  which 


148  Ella  Flagg  Young 


resulted  in  the  election  of  Mrs.  Young  to  the  presi- 
dency of  the  Association.  Quoting  from  the  writer 
mentioned  above,  we  find  that — 

The  spirit  of  insurgency  was  so  strong  that  the  members  took 
the  matter  upon  the  floor  of  the  Association  at  its  annual  meet- 
ing where  the  election  of  officials  is  consummated.  The  name  of 
Superintendent  Young  of  Chicago  was  substituted  for  that  of 
the  regular  nominee  and  she  was  elected  by  an  overwhelming 
vote.  This  was  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  Association 
that  the  report  of  the  committee  on  nominations  had  been  turned 
down.  Every  possible  political  trick  and  every  ounce  of  political 
pressure  were  brought  to  bear  to  prevent  Mrs.  Young's  election 
by  the  nominating  committee  and  to  prevent  her  friends  from 
taking  the  matter  to  the  floor  of  the  convention.  Threats, 
flattery,  and  denunciation  of  those  who  were  supporting  Mrs. 
Young  and  of  the  methods  used  in  advancing  her  candidacy 
(methods  which  had  throughout  been  perfectly  open  and  frank), 
and  promises  of  future  advancement,  all  were  used  wherever  it 
was  thought  possible  to  mollify  the  progressives,  or  to  induce 
them  to  come  into  camp  and  "  be  good."  It  was  all  without 
avail.  The  membership  was  for  Mrs.  Young  and  they  were  not 
to  be  denied. 

In  the  face  of  this  bitterness  engendered  by  the  older 
element  resenting  a  break  in  its  power,  Mrs.  Young's 
name  was  presented  by  a  minority  of  the  nominating 
committee.  Preparation  for  this  event  had  been  made 
by  the  friends  of  Mrs.  Young  for  several  weeks.  The 
moment  was  tense.  In  presenting  her  name,  the  speaker 
said : 

I  understand  that  the  presentation  of  such  a  report  as  I  am 
making  is  without  precedent  in  the  annals  of  this  Association, 
and  I  am  glad  that  this  woman,  who  has  been  breaking  records 
ever  since  she  started,  is  breaking  the  record  of  this  Association 
now.  .  .  .  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  this  organization 
a  woman  has  been  mentioned  for  the  high  office  that  has  been 
filled  for  so  many  years  by  so  many  distinguished  men,  and  for 


A   Time-Honored  Institution  149 

the  first  time  we  have  a  woman  who  stands,  frail  and  little  as 
she  is,  towering  above  those  that  are  about  her.  She  has  not 
merely  a  national  reputation,  she  has  an  international  reputation. 
I  regret  any  mention  of  a  sex  line  in  any  contest.  We  are 
presenting  the  name  of  Mrs.  Young  as  the  best  human  being 
for  this  position.  She  has  the  record  of  having  taught  from  the 
primary  school  to  the  university.  She  has  done  something  that 
thrills  every  one  of  us ;  when  you  can  say  that  man  or  woman 
past  fifty  starts  in  and  obtains  a  university  education,  it  is  some- 
thing to  thrill  one  with  admiration.  .  .  .  We  have  a  woman 
to  speak  for  us  in  Mrs.  Young  who  will  not  speak  the  word 
wrong.  It  has  been  said  that  too  many  presidents  come  from 
Illinois.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Young  comes  not  from  Chicago,  but  from 
this  whole  country.  There  are  women  and  men  from  north 
and  south,  from  east  and  west,  and  from  the  center,  all  anxious 
to  see  her  given  a  chance  to  do  in  this  Association  what  she  has 
already  done  in  Chicago. 

When  the  vote  was  called  for,  out  of  993,  617 
favored  the  substitution  of  Mrs.  Young's  name  for  that 
of  the  majority  candidate.  The  domination  of  an 
oligarchy  had  been  broken.  Bitter  words  grew  out  of 
this  act  on  the  part  of  the  meeting.  These  words  were 
echoed  and  re-echoed  in  various  forms  In  newspapers 
and  educational  magazines  and  in  some  of  the  speeches 
of  men  in  the  Association.  An  editorial  In  a  leading 
educational  journal  said  that — 

To  take  this  action  [nomination  of  Mrs,  Young  from  the  floor 
of  the  convention]  in  the  interest  of  a  particular  candidate  who 
had  not  received  the  support  of  a  majority  of  the  committee 
duly  chosen  to  select  a  president,  and  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that 
the  committee  had  nominated  a  man  of  national  reputation  and 
of  long  and  devoted  service  to  the  Association,  was  injudicious, 
to  say  the  least. 

This  entire  editorial  was  an  adverse  criticism  of  the 
convention's  action.  In  the  same  journal  at  a  later 
time  an  editorial  writer  criticizes  Mrs.  Young  severely 


150  Ella  Flagg  Young 

for  indorsing  all  that  was  done  for  her  election  and  the 
methods  resorted  to.  The  writer  says  there  were  even 
threats  of  vengeance  upon  any  one  who  dared  to  oppose 
her.  She  had  an  all-absorbing  ambition  and  determi- 
nation to  win  at  any  cost.  The  appeal,  according  to 
this  writer,  was  made  to  a  house  packed  by  members  of 
the  Association  from  Chicago,  New  York,  and  Boston. 
If  such  a  policy  were  to  be  pursued,  the  writer  suggests 
that  the  constitutional  provision  for  a  nominating  com- 
mittee should  be  repealed.  In  another  educational 
journal  an  editorial  says  the  atmosphere  of  the  Asso- 
ciation was  like  that  of  a  political  convention.  It  claims 
that  Mrs.  Young  was  elected  In  spite  of  over-zealous 
efforts  of  would-be  friends  and  would  make  an  excellent 
president.  "  The  only  regret  Is  that  her  election  could 
not  have  been  more  dignified." 

Such  words  represent  the  death  throes  of  a  system 
intrenched  behind  narrow  partisanship  and  not  the  atti- 
tude of  the  vast  majority  of  people.  Two  editorials, 
one  from  a  daily  paper  of  the  time  and  the  other  from 
a  western  educational  journal,  express  the  more  general 
feeling : 

If  the  duties  of  president  of  the  National  Education  Associa- 
tion require  an  administrator  possessing  preeminently  the  highest 
faculties  of  the  profession  of  teaching,  then  the  organization  has 
voted  wisely  in  electing  to  its  highest  office  Mrs.  Ella  Flagg 
Young,  the  superintendent  of  the  Chicago  public  schools.  In  a 
year's  service  in  the  latter  capacity  Mrs.  Young  has  disclosed 
characteristics  and  abilities  manifold  and  admirable  —  endow- 
ments sufficient  to  overcome  all  the  perplexities  of  her  difficult 
position  and  to  make  her  the  most  successful  and  progressive 
executive  the  system  has  ever  had.  If  there  were  no  doubts  a 
year  ago  as  to  her  fitness  for  the  task,  there  were  at  least  preju- 
dices.   But  with  the  certain  evidences  of  her  achievements  in  the 


A   Time-Honored  Institution  151 

various  functions  of  her  office,  even  these  prejudices  have  dis- 
appeared, and  there  exists  a  comforting  satisfaction  that  the 
direction  of  the  schools  is  in  the  proper  hands.  The  National 
Education  Association  will  find  that  its  chief  officer  is  a  woman 
of  the  utmost  tact  —  a  tact  which  has  soothed  and  reconciled 
conditions  of  petulant  insurgency  in  the  Chicago  schools  after 
years  of  annoying  turmoil.  It  will  find  her  a  woman  of  fine 
mental  strength,  clear  of  view,  just  and  sympathetic,  guided  by 
principles  instead  of  arbitrary  rules,  flexible  but  guilty  of  no 
craven  concessions.  Her  educational  qualifications,  her  pride  in 
her  calling,  her  capacity  for  administration,  her  experience  in 
various  branches  of  instruction,  are  a  rich  equipment  and  one 
which  should  add  definitely  to  the  prestige  and  power  of  the 
association  of  which  she  is  head. 

In  the  Nebraska  Teacher,  the  editor  wrote: 

The  election  of  Mrs.  Ella  Flagg  Young  as  president  of  the 
National  Education  Association  is  another  victory  for  good 
government  in  that  organization.  Mrs.  Young  has  made  a 
good  record  as  superintendent  of  the  second  largest  system  of 
schools  in  this  country.  She  was  the  popular  choice  of  a  very 
large  majority  of  the  teachers  of  the  country.  There  was  every 
reason  why  she  should  be  chosen  for  the  great  honor  which  this 
position  carries  with  it.  Her  election  emphasizes  the  principle 
so  well  established  in  Nebraska,  that  such  honors  should  go 
unsought  to  the  one  who  will  honor  the  position  because  of 
great  service  to  the  educational  cause.  Mrs.  Young's  election 
is  fitting  not  only  on  these  grounds,  but  because  of  the  opportu- 
nity to  recognize  the  great  service  of  women  to  education  in  this 
country.  It  is  fortunate  that  the  active  members  of  the  National 
Education  Association  at  Boston  had  the  courage  of  their 
convictions. 

Upon  her  election  to  the  office,  Mrs.  Young  uttered 
the  words  that  crystallized  the  opposition  into  the  "  old 
guard,"  a  name  based  upon  the  control  exercised  by 
the  board  of  trustees  for  many  years.  She  expressed 
not  only  the  hopes  of  men  and  women  who  had  been 
fighting  for  a  more  democratic  form  of  government 


152  Ella  Flagg  Young 

in  the  National  Education  Association,  but  expressed 
again  the  spirit  that  had  animated  every  act  of  hers 
in  educational  administration.  When  called  to  the 
platform  and  introduced,  she  said: 

It  is  with  a  deep  sense  of  the  honor  you  have  conferred  upon 
me  and  the  responsibility  I  assume  in  accepting  the  presidency 
of  this  Association  that  I  enter  upon  the  duties  of  the  position 
to  which  you  have  elected  me.  I  am  well  aware  that  in  one 
short  year  a  president  may  not  influence  the  character  of  the 
Association  in  a  marked  degree.  The  president  may,  however, 
conserve  the  good  which  has  been  developed  in  the  past  and 
assure  one  advance  step  in  the  future.  I  hope  to  assist  in  abolish- 
ing the  distinction  in  membership  between  those  who  can  and 
those  who  cannot  pay  comparatively  high  dues.  This  will  never 
be  a  truly  democratic  organization  while  it  shuts  out  from  active 
membership  the  men  and  the  women  who  receive  small  salaries 
teaching  in  a  cramped  environment  where  people  have  not  yet 
learned  the  value  of  the  teacher.  Something  certainly  can  be 
accomplished  toward  advancing  the  spirit  of  fellowship  among 
teachers  so  that  all  will  be  interested  in  education,  not  only  in 
the  rural  district,  the  village,  or  the  town  in  which  their 
personal  work  is  carried  on,  but  throughout  the  land. 

During  her  year  as  president  Mrs.  Young  made  her 
position  as  to  democratizing  the  Association  felt  to  a 
degree  that  it  did  take  "  one  advance  step."  From  the 
very  first  she  was  opposed  and  fought.  The  legality  of 
her  election  at  Boston  was  questioned,  and  her  own 
part  in  that  event  was  made  the  object  of  criticism  by 
the  powers  that  had  been  controlling  the  organization. 
The  board  of  trustees  and  the  secretary  undertook  to 
run  affairs  without  consulting  the  president,  not  so 
much  out  of  disrespect  for  her,  as  for  the  reason  that 
this  had  been  the  custom.  Before  the  year  was  over 
they  were  fully  aware  that  this  custom  would  have  to 
be  changed  and  it  would  be  necessary  to  include  the 


A   Time-Honored  Institution  153 

president  as  an  active,  though  ex-officio,  member  of  that 
body.  Mrs.  Young  thought  that  good  business  man- 
agement required  full  and  technical  intelligence  as  to 
the  disposition  of  the  permanent  funds  of  the  Asso- 
ciation. In  expressing  this  idea  she  was  voicing  the 
demands  that  had  been  heard  from  individuals  for  sev- 
eral years.  But  her  statement  of  this  need  brought 
abuse  and  an  effort  to  discredit  her  as  president  on  the 
part  of  opponents  of  progress. 

In  spite  of  opposition  the  meeting  at  San  Francisco 
the  next  summer  was  a  successful  meeting.  A  move- 
ment was  set  under  way  at  that  time  to  put  the  Asso- 
ciation's affairs  as  completely  as  possible  out  of  the 
hands  of  any  political  body  and  to  make  the  active 
members  responsible  to  a  degree  not  possible  before. 
Officers  were  elected  who  had  been  known  as  fighters 
for  the  principle  on  which  Mrs.  Young  won  at  Boston. 
Mrs.  Young's  address  on  "The  hypothesis  in  educa- 
tion," already  referred  to,  was  devoted  to  a  discussion 
of  an  educational  and  not  a  political  subject. 

Of  course,  the  fight  which  Mrs.  Young  had  got  into 
did  not  cease  with  her  year  as  president  of  the  Asso- 
ciation. The  following  year  in  Chicago  the  whole  issue 
was  raised  again  and  she  was  brought  into  It  in  the  most 
bitter  kind  of  light.  In  Boston  teachers  from  New 
York  City  had  been  active  leaders  for  Mrs.  Young. 
In  fact,  one  member  from  that  city  had  presented  the 
minority  report  which  nominated  her.  It  seems  that 
this  had  been  done  with  a  distinctively  partisan  and 
political  object,  as  the  course  of  events  in  Chicago  dem- 
onstrated. Long  before  the  meeting  took  place  every 
effort  possible  was  made  to  draw  Mrs.  Young  into  a 


154  Ella  Flagg  Young 

deal  whereby  she  should  return  the  favor  to  a  New 
York  woman  which  had  been  shown  her.  She  was 
accused  of  not  playing  the  game,  and  her  friends  were 
criticized  in  private  and  on  the  floor  of  the  convention 
at  Chicago.  In  spite  of  all  pressure  and  all  bitterness 
of  a  personal  nature  against  her  and  Chicago  teachers, 
Mrs.  Young  refused  to  be  drawn  into  the  struggle.  It 
was  her  influence  more  than  any  other  force,  though 
she  exercised  this  by  withholding  from  the  controversy, 
which  brought  through  the  issues  before  the  Associa- 
tion: The  adoption  of  the  changes  to  the  constitution 
of  the  Association. 

It  is  evident  that  the  time  was  ripe  for  a  revolution 
in  the  management  and  the  ideals  of  the  National  Edu- 
cation Association.  Changes  made  in  the  constitution 
liberalizing  the  conditions  for  active  membership;  new 
impetus  given  to  investigations  and  leadership  in  move- 
ments of  the  day;  greater  appeal  to  the  "men  and 
women  who  receive  small  salaries  teaching  in  a  cramped 
environment  where  people  have  not  yet  learned  the 
value  of  the  teacher" ;  and,  finally,  the  rehabilitation  of 
faith  in  democratic  control,  were  some  of  the  accom- 
plishments of  this  revolution.  Mrs.  Young's  great  help 
came  through  the  power  she  had  to  throw  on  the  side 
of  the  teachers  of  the  country  against  a  narrow  oligar- 
chical institution. 

That  her  election  to  the  presidency  of  the  National 
Education  Association  came  during  the  first  year  of  her 
work  as  superintendent  of  Chicago  schools  shows  the 
general  esteem  in  which  she  was  held  throughout  the 
country.  Her  fight  for  democracy  in  that  organization 
was  merely  the  application  of  the  principles  she  had  in 


A   Time-Honored  Institution  155 

mind  to  put  into  operation  in  the  city  schools  of  Chi- 
cago. As  the  following  chapter  will  show,  conditions 
in  the  National  Education  Association  were  consider- 
ably less  intricate  and  less  permeated  by  selfish  interests 
than  were  the  affairs  of  the  city  schools.  By  far  the 
larger  problem  of  administration  lay  in  the  city,  and  it 
is  to  that  problem  that  Mrs.  Young  devoted  the  best 
of  her  energy  and  constructive  powers. 


CHAPTER  XI 

DEMOCRACY  AND  THE  SUPERINTENDENCY  OF 
CHICAGO  SCHOOLS 

TITHEN  Mrs.  Young  left  the  assistant  superlntend- 
'  '  ency  in  1899  the  schools  were  in  a  turmoil  over 
the  question  of  the  teachers.  Salaries,  study,  promo- 
tion, and  tenure  of  office  were  questions  agitating  the 
minds  of  teachers  and  board  and  superintendent.  To 
Mrs.  Young  the  most  important  question  was  that  of 
the  efforts  to  reduce  teachers  and  supervisors  to  mere 
clerks,  to  automatons  under  the  direction  of  a  respon- 
sible head,  of  a  superintendent  and  the  board  of  edu- 
cation. For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  Chicago 
schools,  teachers  began  to  agitate  over  organization  for 
mutual  protection  and  to  secure  ends  of  their  own. 
Mrs.  Young  left  because  the  situation  was  in  confusion 
and  there  seemed  no  immediate  hope  of  securing  relief. 
From  the  day  of  her  resignation  from  the  schools 
until  her  re-election  to  the  superlntendency  ten  years 
later,  this  agitation  over  the  status  of  teachers  and 
teacher-organization  was  kept  up.  Her  immediate 
predecessor  in  the  office  of  superintendent  Inherited  the 
controversy  from  his  predecessor,  but  instead  of  being 
able  to  bring  order  out  of  the  chaos,  he  added  fuel  to 
the  fire.  To  questions  of  salary  and  promotion,  he 
added  that  of  a  secret  marking  system  which  made  the 
teachers'  standing  dependent  wholly  upon  the  will  of 
principal  or  superintendent  with  no  Intelligent  recourse. 
Teachers  were  driven  for  self-protection  to  affiliate 
themselves  with  labor  organizations  having  ends  out- 

iS6 


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I-  ci: 

PS  O^ 


Democracy  and  Superintendency  157 

side  those  of  the  school.  During  these  years  of  con- 
troversy between  superintendent  and  teachers'  organi- 
zation the  public  was  given  to  understand  that  the 
difficulty  rested  upon  the  fact  that  the  teachers'  federa- 
tion was  composed  of  professional  agitators.  Not  once 
was  it  made  clear  that  this  organization  was  the  result 
of  the  conditions  under  which  Chicago  schools  were 
governed.  At  any  rate,  the  city  grew  sick  of  contin- 
ual friction  in  the  management  of  school  affairs,  and 
demanded  relief. 

It  was  with  satisfaction  to  the  public  that  quiet  was 
restored  from  the  day  that  Mrs.  Young  was  elected 
to  the  superintendency.  Teachers  at  once  felt  that 
they  could  count  on  a  fair  deal  because  they  knew  and 
trusted  the  superintendent.  Secret  markings  were  abol- 
ished, teachers  were  heard  in  their  own  defense,  and 
very  shortly  were  called  into  councils  to  advise  the 
superintendent  on  vital  affairs  In  the  schools.  They 
were  consulted  in  the  making  of  courses  of  study  and 
selecting  of  textbooks.  Salaries  were  readjusted,  and 
promotional  work  reorganized  so  as  to  give  each  one 
a  fair  chance  for  advancement  and  growth.  Instead  of 
fighting  the  organizing  of  teachers,  Mrs.  Young  en- 
couraged it  because  she  believed,  as  she  expressed 
before  the  so-called  Senate  Committee  in  19 15,  that 

the  growth  of  the  grade  teachers  in  a  general  civic  sense,  and 
recognition  of  the  rights  of  the  human  being,  has  been  remark- 
able since  the  organization  of  the  teachers'  federation.  .  .  .  Not 
only  the  federation,  but  the  various  clubs  are  beneficial.  What- 
ever makes  teachers  appreciate  the  life  of  the  community,  the 
spirit  of  the  nation  to  which  they  belong,  helps  the  school.  The 
great  drawback  in  education  in  the  past  has  been  that  teachers 
knew  their  books  and  didn't  know  life  outside. 


158  Ella  Flagg  Young 

From  the  point  of  view  of  history  the  work  of  Mrs. 
Young  as  superintendent,  obscured  by  the  recent  con- 
troversies so  bitterly  waged,  cannot  be  rightly  judged. 
Only  time  can  tell  how  permanent  and  how  strong  are 
the  changes  and  the  institutions  for  which  she  was 
responsible.  But,  judged  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
unity  of  spirit  prevailing  among  the  elementary-school 
teachers  of  the  city  during  her  administration,  her  work 
was  unique.  In  one  place  in  her  testimony  before  the 
committee  mentioned  above,  she  remarked  in  passing 
that  "when  I  was  a  teacher  we  went  meekly  to  the 
institutes  that  we  were  summoned  to  attend  by  the 
superintendent."  In  the  teachers'  councils  which  Mrs. 
Young  called  together,  there  was  none  of  this  meek 
coming  together  because  summoned  by  the  superintend- 
ent. Instead,  the  councils  were  the  livest  and  most  out- 
spoken of  meetings,  and  each  teacher  was  anxious  to 
get  her  position  before  the  superintendent  and  was 
encouraged  in  this  effort. 

But  Mrs.  Young  did  not  find  the  administration  of 
schools  a  bed  of  roses.  As  pointed  out  in  the  opening 
chapter  of  this  book,  she  reached  a  point  where  every 
move  she  made  was  fought.  The  last  two  years  of  her 
term  as  superintendent  were  comparatively  ineffective 
because  of  the  determined  opposition  and  efforts  to  rid 
the  schools  of  her  service.  A  discussion  of  this  con- 
troversy in  all  of  its  details  would  involve  too  extended 
a  treatise  and  would  be  without  value  in  showing  the 
position  Mrs.  Young  occupied  at  the  time.  So  many 
interests  and  so  many  aspects  of  the  questions  are  in- 
volved that  a  clear  and  unbiased  statement  is  difficult 
to  make.     It  is  the  .burden  of  this  chapter,  however, 


Democracy  and  Superintendency  159 

to  set  forth  this  controversy  in  as  brief  and  fair  a  way 
as  possible,  even  though  it  be  at  the  expense  of  com- 
pleteness. Of  one  fact  there  is  no  doubt  in  all  this 
controversy,  and  that  is  that  every  act  of  Mrs.  Young 
can  be  given  the  widest  publicity  without  any  fear  of 
finding  it  questionable  or  dishonorable.  Her  purpose 
to  serve  the  schools  never  wavered  through  the  entire 
time,  and  from  a  "heckling"  board  meeting  she  would 
hasten  to  some  piece  of  work  providing  for  the  better- 
ment of  schools,  or  children,  or  teachers. 

"Interests"  represented  on  the  school  board  lie  at 
the  foundation  of  most  of  the  ills  of  city  schools,  in 
Chicago  as  elsewhere.  This  point  has  already  been 
made  clear  in  the  first  chapter  and  so  is  here  referred 
to  only  to  introduce  the  elements  of  interests  that  fig- 
ured in  the  troubles  which  beset  the  superintendent  of 
schools  during  the  past  two  or  three  years.  Probably 
in  last  analysis,  financial  influences  have  been  back  of 
the  political  machinations  in  the  controversy.  More 
specifically,  these  took  the  form  of  the  selection  of  text- 
books, dealing  with  organized  teachers,  and  the  selec- 
tion and  purchase  of  building  sites.  In  addition  to 
these  questions,  which  are  essentially  financial,  there 
arose,  in  common  with  the  movement  throughout  the 
country,  a  question  of  religious  and  sectarian  influences 
in  school  matters.  All  of  these  elements  were  present 
in  the  fight  on  Mrs.  Young  during  the  last  years  of  her 
ofllice,  and  a  discussion  of  some  of  them  will  show  the 
position  she  took.  Some  form  of  organization  and 
amalgamation  of  these  forces  finally  succeeded  in  driv- 
ing her  from  the  superintendency. 

The  first  matter  that  broke  the  calm  of  admlnlstra- 


l6o  Ella  Flagg  Young 

tion  was  the  question  of  the  selection  of  textbooks 
in  reading  and  spelling.  Under  oath,  Mrs.  Young 
stated  before  the  Baldwin  Committee  in  19 15  the  facts 
of  this  controversy,  a  brief  summary  of  which  follows. 
In  June,  19 12,  she  recommended  to  the  school  man- 
agement committee  that  a  series  of  readers  should  be 
adopted.  She  made  her  recommendation  of  the  series 
she  had  selected  and  then  says :  "  In  connection  with  the 
adoption  of  those  readers  I  had  my  first  experience  of 
what  almost  every  superintendent  in  the  United  States 
has  met  before  going  out  of  office."  An  agent  of  one 
of  the  books  not  adopted  threatened  to  "  get"  her,  and 
was  one  source  of  trouble  for  her.  In_  adopting  a 
spelling  book  at  the  time  she  says : 

Unfortunately,  I  said  to  some  members  of  the  committee  on 
school  management  that  board  members  were  trying  to  influence 
me.  .  .  .  When  we  got  into  committee  I  was  asked  for  the 
names  of  members  trying  to  influence  me.  Of  course,  I  had  to 
say  "yes,"  and  stated  who  they  were.  From  that  day  the 
intention  was  to  move  me  out  of  office. 

Mrs.  Young's  experience  in  dealing  with  textbooks 
had  up  to  that  time  been  singularly  free  from  entangle- 
ments that  are  common  in  school  administration.  At 
that  time  it  was  not  so  much  a  matter  of  the  direct 
action  of  any  company  as  it  was  a  demand  on  the  part 
of  board  members  for  union-made  books.  Without 
doubt,  pressure  was  being  brought  to  bear  on  these 
members  by  the  interests  that  had  put  them  in  their 
position  for  just  such  emergencies.  Largely  out  of 
this  controversy  over  textbooks  grew  the  bitterness  that 
led  Mrs.  Young  to  withdraw  from  the  superintendency 
in  1913. 


Democracy  and  Superintendency  i6i 

The  second  element  in  the  fight  between  Mrs.  Young 
and  the  board  was  over  the  teachers  being  affiliated 
with  organized  labor.  The  attitude  of  Mrs.  Young  on 
this  matter  has  been  pointed  out  in  connection  with  her 
testimony  before  the  Baldwin  Committee.  Again,  the 
issue  was  probably  at  bottom  a  financial  one.  Organ- 
ized teachers  were  becoming  too  strong  for  the 
recognized  "interests"  in  the  board  itself  and  were 
demanding  consideration  as  to  living  conditions  that 
the  board  found  it  expensive  to  meet.  Mrs.  Young's 
first  split  with  the  members  of  the  board  over  the  fed- 
eration came  when  the  board  and  the  teachers  had 
separate  bills  before  the  legislature  for  a  system  of 
pensions.  One  member  of  the  board  expressed  fear 
that  teachers  federated  with  labor  might  be  a  menace 
to  the  schools  because  of  a  provision  of  such  organiza- 
tions to  use  the  strike  as  a  means  of  gaining  their  ends. 
Mrs.  Young  refused  to  accept  such  an  interpretation 
of  the  teaching  force  of  Chicago.  Again  and  again 
this  matter  came  up  in  one  form  or  another  until  finally 
a  rule  was  introduced  making  it  illegal  for  a  teacher 
to  belong  to  outside-controlled  organizations,  though, 
as  explained  at  the  time,  the  rule  was  aimed  specifically 
at  the  teachers'  federation.  The  fight  in  the  lower 
courts  over  this  rule  has  gone  in  favor  of  the  teachers, 
but  in  the  meantime  Mrs.  Young  left  the  superin- 
tendency. 

As  an  essential  part  of  this  controversy  over  the 
organization  of  teachers  came  the  fight  to  reduce  sal- 
aries in  order  to  meet  a  deficit  in  the  board's  funds  for 
schools.  One  of  the  things,  as  already  explained,  for 
which  Mrs.  Young  contended  during  her  superintend- 


1 62  Ella  Flagg  Youn0 

ency  was  for  better  salaries  for  teachers.  When  the 
question  of  retrenchment  arose  during  19 15  she  said 
she  thought  the  teachers  of  the  city  would  be  willing 
to  contribute  a  part  of  their  time  that  the  schools  might 
hot  be  closed  on  account  of  a  shortage  of  money.  Her 
plan  in  this  suggestion  was  to  forestall  any  cutting  of 
the  salary  schedule  for  the  coming  year  because  she 
feared,  from  her  previous  experiences  with  such  mat- 
ters, that  the  cut  might  be  permanent.  The  committee 
handling  this  question  accused  the  federation  of  block- 
ing the  move  and  blamed  Mrs.  Young  for  abetting 
them  in  this.  The  finances  of  the  board  are  so  man- 
aged that  no  one  seems  to  be  able  to  tell  where  a  deficit 
is  likely  to  arise,  or  why.  In  her  testimony  already 
referred  to,  Mrs.  Young  explains  the  system  in  vogue, 
of  transferring  funds  from  one  department  to  another 
to  meet  the  demands  of  the  time.  She  also  pointed  out 
that  the  so-called  deficit  in  the  educational  department 
was  not  as  great  in  proportion  as  that  in  the  adminis- 
trative department,  yet  the  latter  had  been  reported 
without  a  deficit.  The  idea  she  intended  to  convey 
was  that  her  opponents  were  trying  to  show  that  her 
work  and  her  department  had  been  run  into  debt  be- 
cause of  poor  management,  while  as  a  matter  of  fact 
no  such  condition  existed.  In  connection  with  this 
struggle  over  the  so-called  deficit,  Mrs.  Young  believed 
that  with  the  increased  taxation  voted  by  the  legisla- 
ture the  board  should  borrow  money  for  current  ex- 
penses until  such  increase  became  available  for  the 
schools. 

Whether  irregularities  existed  in  selecting  building 
sites  has  not  been  conclusively  proven,  though  the  gen- 


Democracy  and  Superintendency  163 

eral  public  believes  such  to  have  been  the  case.  News- 
papers and  committees  of  investigation  have  gone  over 
the  evidence,  but  have  never  gone  far  enough  to  show 
what  was  the  real  situation.  In  this  matter,  as  well  as 
that  of  leasing  school-board  property,  the  practice  in 
Chicago  has  been  uncertain  because  it  has  always  de- 
pended upon  the  makeup  of  the  board  from  time  to 
time.  Mrs.  Young  was  consistently  opposed  to  a  slip- 
shod policy,  and  gained  much  of  the  enmity  against  her 
in  this  way. 

Mrs.  Young's  fight  for  the  unit  system  as  opposed 
to  the  dual  system  of  vocational  education  was  one  of 
the  most  important  forces  in  making  her  a  target  for 
some  of  the  interests  back  of  the  school  board.  She 
was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  greatest  individual  factors 
in  forestalling  the  scheme  to  divide  the  educational 
system  and  fund  of  this  state  and  city.  At  the  same 
time  all  prominent  teachers'  organizations  took  an 
active  part  in  this  struggle,  and  among  them  the  most 
active  was  the  federation,  which  thus  gave  its  enemies 
one  more  incentive  for  its  elimination. 

Religious  issues  injected  into  school  affairs  of  Chi- 
cago were  partly  the  result  of  a  general  agitation  in  this 
country  against  mixing  religion  with  public  policy.  Ar- 
guments against  Mrs.  Young  based  on  this  agitation 
were  common.  In  her  testimony  before  the  Baldwin 
Committee  she  said: 

There  are  people  who  have  intended  to  injure  me.  They  said 
from  one  end  of  this  country  to  another  that  I  am  a  Catholic. 
I  am  a  Presbyterian,  and  yet  I  have  been  called  a  Catholic,  and 
it  is  not  a  week  since  I  was  told  that  I  ought  to  get  the  word 
out  that  I  am  not  a  Catholic.    I  said  "  No."    I  cannot  say  any- 


164  Ella  Flagg  Young 

thing,  for  I  respect  many  Catholics,  and  for  me  to  come  out  in 
the  papers  with  this  announcement  would  indicate  that  there  was 
something  disgraceful  in  being  a  Catholic.  Yet  it  has  been 
said  that  I  go  out  of  this  hotel  every  morning  to  early  mass ;  that 
I  have  an  altar  in  my  room ;  that  I  have  a  son  a  Catholic  priest. 

The  first  open  break  in  this  matter,  though  religion 
was  not  explicitly  mentioned,  came  in  the  refusal  of  the 
board  to  confirm  one  of  Mrs.  Young's  nominees  for  a 
responsible  position.  Her  own  religious  views  were 
always  liberal,  for,  though  she  classed  herself  as  a  Pres- 
byterian, she  followed  David  Swing  in  his  formation  of 
the  Central  Church.  Opposition  against  her  on  religi- 
ous grounds  could  only  have  been  originated  by  persons 
with  selfish  purposes.  That  she  has  been  open-minded 
in  dealing  with  so  delicate  a  subject  as  religious  and 
political  beliefs,  all  her  dealings  with  men  and  women 
prove.  Her  belief  in  the  integrity  of  the  public  schools 
was  so  strong  that  she  lamented  the  intrusion  of  sec- 
tarian and  political  and  social  issues.  White  or  black, 
native  or  foreign-born,  believer  or  unbeliever,  were  all 
to  her  human  spirits  and  were  given  such  opportunity 
as  citizens  of  a  democracy  were  entitled  to.  She  pro- 
claimed in  public  on  numerous  occasions  her  conviction 
that  every  child  in  this  country  should  be  educated  in 
the  public  schools  of  the  country. 

All  these  factors  entered  into  the  fight  against  Mrs. 
Young  as  superintendent  during  the  last  two  or  three 
years  of  her  term.  In  July,  19 13,  she  presented  her 
resignation  to  the  board  of  education.  A  great  amount 
of  agitation  sprang  up  against  this  action  and  the  board 
refused  to  accept  her  resignation.  She  was  given  every 
assurance  of  support  by  the  board  at  the  time,  and  she 


Democracy  and  Superintendency  165 

consented  to  go  on  with  her  duties  as  superintendent. 
But  she  lived  to  regret  her  action.  In  this  act  she  vio- 
lated a  principle  that  had  governed  her  official  record 
from  the  beginning,  and  that  was  to  leave  a  place  that 
she  felt  she  could  not  fill  without  being  hampered  by 
bickering.  Ostensibly,  the  reason  she  gave  was  that 
she  could  not  work  while  a  part  of  the  board  stood 
against  her  policies.  She  was  accused  of  playing  poli- 
tics by  her  move  in  resigning.  Undoubtedly,  most  per- 
sons in  such  a  position  would  have  to  put  up  with  a 
divided  board  at  some  times.  Mrs.  Young  felt,  how- 
ever, the  force  of  the  divided  board,  and  she  knew  that 
no  constructive  work  could  be  done  under  such  condi- 
tions; therefore,  she  refused  to  trade  by  political 
maneuvering  in  the  position.     As  one  writer  puts  it: 

They  didn't  like  her,  first,  because  of  the  stand  she  took  against 
the  schoolbook  trust  (she  would  not  be  manipulated  by  it),  and 
they  didn't  like  her  because  she  seemed  to  have  too  high  an 
ideal  of  her  office.  She  stood  as  a  complete  obstructionist  to 
all  efforts  to  speculate  in  school  sites  and  to  create  real-estate 
situations  that  any  one  might  have  private  gain.  And  there  was 
also  opposition  on  the  part  of  the  board  because  of  the  increasing 
interest  which  the  women  of  Chicago  took  in  the  schools  over 
which  Mrs.  Young  was  placed. 

After  the  board  refused  to  accept  her  resignation, 
Mrs.  Young  again  took  up  the  work  with  her  usual 
earnest  effort  for  the  betterment  of  the  schools.  Mat- 
ters seemed  to  move  very  smoothly,  all  too  smoothly, 
as  events  showed  later  on  in  the  year.  At  the  annual 
election  of  superintendent  in  December  of  that  year, 
the  board  suddenly  developed  an  opposition  candidate. 
Mrs.  Young  was  taken  by  complete  surprise.  One  of 
her  friends  on  the  board  came  to  her  on  the  morning 


1 66  Ella  Flagg  Young 

of  the  election  to  say  that  there  would  be  opposition, 
but  she  rested  so  securely  in  the  belief  that  the  action 
in  the  previous  July  in  asking  her  to  reconsider  her 
resignation  had  been  genuine,  that  she  supposed  oppo- 
sition to  her  would  amount  to  nothing.  It  seemed,  how- 
ever, that  there  had  been  a  secret  intrigue  during  the 
previous  few  months  which  had  built  up  a  combination 
to  elect  someone  else  to  the  superintendency.  Some  of 
the  principal  movers  in  this  opposition  had  been  appar- 
ently her  friends,  and  not  those  who  had  openly  fought 
her  in  the  board.  So  taken  by  surprise  at  the  opposition 
and  the  nomination  of  another  candidate  was  she,  that 
in  chagrin  and  anger,  partly  at  her  own  stupidity,  as 
she  has  said,  as  well  as  at  the  double  dealing  of  some 
of  the  members,  she  left  the  board  rooms  at  once.  This 
was  the  first  step  in  her  repentance  for  having  been 
persuaded  to  recall  her  resignation.     Later  she  said: 

Two  years  ago  last  July  I  violated  one  of  my  pet  theories, 
and  I  have  always  regretted  it.  I  have  always  thought  that 
when  a  person  resigns  he  should  never  go  back  to  the  position. 
I  have  seen  it  work  out  a  number  of  times.  I  resigned  then,  and 
two  weeks  later  the  board  of  education  refused  to  accept  the 
resignation.  I  thought  the  members  meant  what  they  said.  I 
was  mistaken.  If  I  had  not  gone  back  I  should  have  escaped  all 
the  trouble. 

By  a  sudden  and  dramatic  uprising,  men  and  women 
throughout  the  city  demanded  her  return  to  the  super- 
intendency. Among  many  editorials  in  daily  papers 
this  one  gives  the  temper  of  the  city: 

Chicago  never  before  gave  such  a  testimonial  to  any  citizen 
as  the  meeting  at  the  Auditorium,  Saturday,  in  behalf  of  Mrs. 
Ella  Flagg  Young.  The  vast  hall  was  jammed,  not  with  people 
to  see  a  show,  but  with  solid  citizens  bent  on  showing  their 


Democracy  and  Superintendency  167 

confidence  in  the  city's  foremost  educator  and  on  righting  the 
wrongs  done  by  politics  to  the  city's  schools,  A  native  son  who 
had  been  elected  president  of  the  United  States  might  feel 
flattered  at  such  a  demonstration.  The  gathering  of  Saturday, 
and  the  universal  outcry  from  all  parts  of  the  city,  show  that  a 
democracy  is  not  ungrateful  for  services  rendered  its  children. 

The  mayor  of  the  city  took  a  hand  In  affairs  and  the 
city  witnessed  the  spectacle  of  two  sets  of  officers  trying 
to  fill  the  places  on  the  board  of  education.  Although 
another  superintendent  had  been  elected  at  the  time 
Mrs.  Young  left  the  rooms,  the  board  reconsidered  its 
action  and  put  her  back  into  the  place.  There  was 
nothing  else  the  board  could  do.  Pressure  from  newly 
enfranchised  women  In  Chicago  was  so  Insistent  that 
political  forces  were  compelled  to  recognize  the  Inter- 
ests of  the  schools,  at  least  ostensibly.  But  the  two 
years  from  the  time  of  this  action  in  December,  19 13, 
until  her  announcements  of  her  resignation  were  one 
continuous  turmoil  in  board  management  of  schools. 
Hitherto  unexpressed  opposition  on  the  part  of  the 
men  principals  and  some  of  the  men  teachers  In  the 
high  schools  found  more  and  more  clear  expression  In 
various  ways  against  a  woman  superintendent.  One  of 
the  daily  papers,  up  to  this  time  a  staunch  supporter  of 
Mrs.  Young,  now  by  insinuation  and  by  open  attack 
editorially  proclaimed  the  necessity  for  a  change  In  the 
superintendency.  Many  persons  of  unbiased  judgment 
saw  the  hand  of  "  Interests "  In  the  published  state- 
ments of  the  newspapers  and  the  moves  made  to 
"  investigate  "  the  schools. 

In  every  way  possible  efforts  were  made  to  compel 
Mrs.  Young  to  leave  the  schools.  It  was  generally  rec- 
ognized that  she  was  the  storm  center  about  which  all 


1 68  Ella  Flagg  Young 

the  controversy  revolved.  Political  interests  found  it 
difficult  to  handle  the  situation  as  long  as  she  occupied 
the  superintendency.  Some  of  these  activities  need 
stating  in  detail.  In  the  first  place,  in  connection  with 
the  deficit  in  school  appropriations,  an  "  efficiency"  com- 
mittee was  appointed  that  undertook  to  cut  teachers' 
salaries  in  order  to  meet  the  shortage.  Because,  as  al- 
ready stated,  Mrs.  Young  opposed  this,  and  because 
the  teachers'  federation  opposed  it,  the  fight  ostensibly 
against  the  latter  organization  was  in  reality  a  fight 
against  the  superintendent,  who  figured  so  largely 
as  an  exponent  of  organized  teachers  as  against  the  po- 
litical interests  on  the  board.  For  several  months  this 
committee  wrangled,  and  ended  by  simply  having  made 
matters  unbearable  for  Mrs.  Young.  Not  a  single  posi- 
tive recommendation  was  made  and  carried  out  by  this 
committee,  except  to  foster  the  attack  directly  on  the 
federation  and  to  hasten  the  growing  disgust  of  the 
superintendent  with  a  heckling  policy.  The  attempts 
of  the  common  council  to  "  investigate  "  the  finances  of 
the  school  board  were  not  aimed  at  Mrs.  Young,  though 
even  here  the  meaning  was  undoubtedly  a  political  one. 
A  second  aspect  of  this  effort  to  drive  Mrs.  Young 
from  the  schools  was  the  policy  of  the  mayor  elected  in 
19 1 5.  Instead  of  making  the  appointments  to  the 
school  board  in  July,  as  was  the  requirement  of  the 
case,  he  neglected  to  do  so,  and  thus  left  the  board  as 
it  was  then  constituted  to  fight  it  out  against  the  super- 
intendent. Undoubtedly,  he  was  unwilling  to  assume, 
for  political  reasons,  the  responsibility  of  appointing  a 
board  that  might  continue  the  task  of  making  life  mis- 
erable for  the  superintendent,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 


Democracy  and  Superintendency  169 

he  was  unwilling  to  offend  the  powers  back  of  this 
fight  by  appointing  a  board  that  might  favor  her  work 
and  retention.  As  evidence  for  this  statement  it  is 
merely  necessary  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  as 
soon  as  Mrs.  Young's  intention  to  leave  the  schools 
was  made  public,  the  mayor  immediately  named  seven 
people  for  the  vacant  places  on  the  board. 

One  other  "investigation"  of  school  affairs  was 
undertaken  by  a  committee  of  state  senators.  The 
resolution  creating  this  committee  was  entered  after 
the  adjournment  of  the  senate,  and,  judged  by  its  activ- 
ity and  history,  was  undoubtedly  a  part  of  the  move- 
ment to  get  rid  of  Mrs.  Young.  The  author  of  the 
resolution  creating  this  committee  was  a  close  political 
friend  of  the  mayor,  thus  tying  up  more  closely  the 
political  interests  back  of  the  movement  to  rid  the 
schools  of  her  influence.  Testimony  taken  by  this  com- 
mittee, as  already  pointed  out,  centered  mainly  about 
the  superintendent  and  the  attack  against  the  teachers' 
federation.  Openly  the  committee  showed  the  greatest 
respect  to  Mrs.  Young,  giving  the  widest  publicity  to 
her  statements  and  encouraging  the  public  in  believing 
the  investigation  was  for  a  real  purpose  of  furthering 
the  schools  of  the  city.  Within  the  committee  dissen- 
sion arose  because  of  the  evident  purpose  of  a  majority 
to  carry  on  matters  in  behalf  of  the  "interests"  of 
Chicago  which  offered  "philanthropically "  to  defray 
the  expenses  of  the  committee.  Moreover,  no  further 
indications  of  the  meaning  of  this  committee  are  nec- 
essary when  it  is  understood  that  the  moment  that  Mrs. 
Young  made  her  announcement  that  she  would  not  be  a 
candidate  for  re-election,  it  dropped  out  of  existence 


lyo  Ella  Flagg  Young 

and  has  not  been  heard  from  since.  Opposition  within 
the  committee  itself  could  not  have  accounted  for  its 
complete  cessation,  because  a  majority  of  the  commit- 
tee was  in  favor  of  the  policy  for  which  it  had  been 
appointed.  Politics  back  of  the  city  government  of 
Chicago  and  the  board  of  education  was  undoubtedly 
the  moving  force  in  this  investigation  as  well  as  other 
activities  mentioned,  and  the  object  of  them  all  was  to 
rid  the  city  of  Mrs.  Young  without  seeming  to  the 
public  at  large,  particularly  the  women  voters,  to  be 
fighting  her.  The  methods  of  politics  to  cause  friction 
and  dissension  and  yet  keep  in  the  background  are  so 
well  illustrated  in  the  work  of  the  last  two  years  of 
her  superintendency  that  nothing  further  is  necessary  to 
a  complete  understanding  of  her  resignation. 

In  her  resignation  Mrs.  Young  wrote  as  follows : 

Persistent  discussion  of  the  superintendency  of  schools  in  the 
daily  papers  leads  me  to  write  you  officially  of  the  subject. 
When  I  was  re-elected,  December  9,  1914,  I  intended  to  com- 
plete the  plans  made  for  the  school  year  ending  June  30,  1915, 
and  on  that  date  to  sever  my  connection  with  the  Chicago  public 
schools.  When  the  school  year  closed  a  most  perplexing  situa- 
tion existed.  The  board  was  confronted  by  a  prospective  deficit 
varying  from  $600,000  to  $1,350,000,  according  to  the  opinions 
of  different  persons.  In  order  to  reduce  the  sum  as  much  as 
possible  the  board  had  adopted  certain  restrictions  that  were  to 
be  efFective  until  December  31,  1915:  (i)  the  employment  of 
no  extra  teachers;  (2)  the  non-increase  of  additional  teachers; 
(3)  the  non-recognition  of  increases  in  salaries  because  of  pro- 
motional credits ;  (4)  assignment  of  pupils  to  teachers  of  manual 
training  and  household  arts.  Knowing  that  the  enforcement  of 
these  restrictions  would  subject  a  superintendent  to  adverse 
criticism,  I  believed  that  my  responsibility  in  recommending 
higher  salary  schedules  for  principals  and  teachers  placed  on 
me  the  duty  of  administering  these  restrictions,  and  I  therefore 
decided  to  remain  until  December  8,  191 5.  No  deficit  will  con- 


Democracy  and  Siiperintendency  171 

front  the  schools  for  1916,  and  I  shall  gladly  see  my  succes- 
sor enter  upon  the  duties  of  the  office  with  the  prospect  of  an 
educational  field  cleared  for  work  upon  the  problem  of  the 
schools  and  their  interests. 

Mrs.  Young  did  not  release  her  hold  on  the  affairs 
of  the  schools  even  up  to  the  very  day  of  her  departure. 
Her  last  report  was  one  defending  the  morals  of  the 
high  schools  against  charges  made  by  persons  whom  she 
considered  enemies  of  the  public  high  schools.  Every 
item  of  estimate  for  the  following  year  was  gone  over 
by  her  as  painstakingly  and  conscientiously  as  If  she 
were  going  right  on  with  the  work.  In  this  act  the  most 
characteristic  attribute  of  Mrs.  Young  came  out.  She 
would  not  give  up  an  office  with  the  work  disorganized 
and  confused.  Even  though  her  friends  continually 
urged  her  to  let  up  on  the  amount  of  energy  she  was 
putting  Into  the  place  during  the  final  days,  she  was 
always  there  and  always  busy  finishing  the  duties  as  she 
found  them  pressing  upon  her.  Her  successor  did  not 
need  to  spend  weeks  trying  to  catch  up  with  the  slack 
of  official  matters.  It  was  not  that  her  successor  might 
be  relieved,  however,  but  that  the  schools  might  not  be 
left  with  some  period  of  Inattention  and  neglect.  Her 
interest  was  ever  in  the  schools,  and  this  Interest  lasted 
to  the  closing  day  of  her  connection  with  them. 

With  her  withdrawal  from  the  superlntendency  the 
tension  that  had  existed  for  several  months  was  at  once 
relieved.  The  Interests  that  had  fought  her  at  once 
turned  attention  to  a  reorganization  of  management  In 
harmony  with  their  own  demands.  The  feeling  of 
unrest  and  expectancy  was  notably  absent  from  the 
board  meetings.     This  relief  In  tension  was  noticeable 


172  Ella  Flagg  Young 

in  the  speeches  and  pledges  of  good-will  at  the  meetings 
immediately  following  Mrs.  Young's  departure.  Un- 
fortunately for  the  schools  of  Chicago,  however,  the 
fight  through  which  she  had  just  gone  seemed  to  bear 
very  little  immediate  fruit  in  the  reorganization. 
Merely  to  secure  peace  and  good-will  in  management 
is  no  sign  of  progress  in  school  administration.  The 
difficulty  had  been  in  a  politically  organized  board  of 
education,  in  the  dominance  of  interests  responsible  for 
appointments  to  that  body.  All  that  happened  in  the 
new  organization  was  a  rearrangement  of  affairs  suit- 
able to  these  interests,  so  that  harmony  and  peace 
appearing  were  those  of  a  temporary  nature.  The  po- 
litical board  remains  political.  In  time  Chicago  must 
witness  the  same  kind  of  upheaval  in  school  affairs  that 
it  has  in  the  past.  The  present  management  is  based 
on  exactly  the  same  kind  of  uncertain  status  that  has 
always  been  the  case,  and  no  amount  of  ability  and  con- 
scientiousness on  the  part  of  a  superintendent  can  ever 
make  his  tenure  of  office  secure.  In  spite  of  the  most 
extensive  publicity  given  through  Mrs.  Young  to  the 
weaknesses  of  the  school  board  during  the  past  few 
years,  the  public  does  not  generally  seem  to  realize  the 
necessity  for  changing  matters.  American  faith  in  turn- 
ing out  one  set  of  officers  and  electing  another  is  the 
only  remedy  employed  in  handling  school  affairs. 

After  the  withdrawal  of  Mrs.  Young  the  recognition 
given  her  by  citizens  of  Chicago  in  public  meetings  and 
receptions  inspired  some  of  the  members  of  the  board 
of  education  to  offer  a  permanent  and  substantial  recog- 
nition of  her  years  of  service  to  the  city.  The  sug- 
gestion was  that  she  should  be  made  superintendent 


Democracy  and  Superintendency  173' 

emeritus  with  a  salary  of  five  thousand  dollars  a  year. 
Mrs.  Young  stated  to  her  intimate  friends  that  she 
would  not  accept  such  a  position,  even  though  it  might 
be  offered  her,  and  no  one  who  had  known  her  well 
would  have  expected  her  to  do  so.  When  the  matter 
came  up  for  consideration  in  a  committee  of  the  board 
it  was  found  to  have  considerable  opposition.  There 
was  a  feeling  on  the  part  of  some  that  it  would  be  safer 
for  the  interests  of  the  board  to  be  completely  rid  of 
all  of  her  influence.  Arguments  that  this  would  be 
without  legal  sanction  and  an  expenditure  of  the  public 
money  needed  in  other  directions  were  made,  so  the 
proposition  was  dropped  and  nothing  further  done 
about  it,  except  the  passage  of  the  following  resolution. 
On  May  24,  19 16,  the  board  voted  unanimously — 

that  in  humble  acknowledgment  of  the  unpayable  debt  of  our 
citizens  to  the  wisest,  the  greatest,  the  most  devoted  teacher  the 
schools  of  our  city  ever  have  known,  this  simple  record  of  the 
official  service  and  positions  in  public  life  of  the  first  woman 
superintendent  of  schools  of  the  City  of  Chicago,  Ella  Flagg 
Young,  is  spread  upon  the  proceedings  of  this  board  of  educa- 
tion. 

Mrs.  Young  retired  from  the  office  of  superintendent  of 
schools  January  i,  IQ16.  Her  withdrawal  from  the  system 
terminated  a  period  of  service  which  started  in  the  year  1862, 
when  she  began  as  a  grade  teacher.  In  one  year  she  was  a  head 
assistant.  Two  years  later  she  became  the  first  principal  of  the 
school  of  practice  upon  its  creation  as  a  part  of  the  Chicago 
Normal  School.  At  the  end  of  six  years  she  was  given  charge 
of  the  high-schcfol  class  which  developed  into  the  South  Divi- 
sion High  School.  After  three  years  she  returned  to  the  Nor- 
mal School  as  professor  of  mathematics,  for  two  years.  She 
then  became  principal  of  the  Scammon  School,  which  was  fol- 
lowed by  her  principalship  of  the  Skinner  School. 

In  1887  she  was  made  a  district  superintendent,  which  posi- 
tion she  held  until  1899,  when  she  left  the  service  and  became, 


174  -E^^^  Flagg  Young 

first,  an  associate  professorial  lecturer,  and  later,  upon  earning 
her  doctor's  degree,  a  full  professor  in  the  department  of  edu- 
cation of  the  University  of  Chicago.  In  1905  she  re-entered  the 
school  system  as  principal  of  the  Chicago  Normal  School,  which 
position  she  held  until  the  year  1909,  when  she  was  elected 
superintendent  of  the  public  schools  of  this  city. 

Mrs.  Young  was  a  member  of  the  state  board  of  education 
of  Illinois  for  twenty-five  years.  She  was  elected  president  of 
the  State  Teachers'  Association  of  Illinois  in  December,  1909, 
and  in  the  year  1910  she  was  elected  president  of  the  National 
Education  Association. 

Be  it  resolved,  That  an  engrossed  copy  of  this  resolution  be 
given  to  Ella  Flagg  Young  in  token  of  the  highest  esteem  and 
fullest  appreciation  of  this  board  of  education,  as  the  represen- 
tative of  the  citizenry  of  the  City  of  Chicago. 

Mrs.  Young's  Immediate  power  thus  passed  out  of 
the  school  system  which  she  had  served  for  over  fifty- 
three  years.  By  the  action  and  enthusiasm  shown  in 
the  public  receptions  given  in  her  honor  during  the  last 
month  of  her  term  of  office,  it  was  evident  that  her 
efforts  for  the  school  children  of  Chicago  had  left  a 
permanent  impress  on  the  history  of  the  city.  And 
while  the  plan  she  hoped  to  see  put  into  operation  to 
take  the  school  board  out  of  politics  as  far  as  possible 
was  not  realized,  the  city  has  a  more  adequate  notion 
of  the  problems  and  the  dangers  that  beset  the  public 
schools  than  it  has  ever  had  before. 

Education  of  the  public  to  Its  responsibility  to  watch 
and  to  guard  the  Interests  of  Its  children  has  gone  on 
at  an  increasing  speed.  So  also  has  been  the  spirit 
of  unity  among  the  teachers  of  the  elementary  schools. 
Without  an  official  connection  with  the  schools,  Mrs. 
Young's  Influence  cannot  be  removed  from  this  in- 
creased enlightenment  of  the  community  and  a  closer 
comradeship  among  school  teachers. 


CHAPTER  XII 

MAKING   OVER   A    CITY    SCHOOL   SYSTEM 

/^N  the  occasion  of  Mrs.  Young's  election  to  the 
^-^  superintendency,  July  30,  1909,  one  of  the  Chi- 
cago papers  wrote  editorially  as  follows: 

Her  election  to  the  superintendency  of  the  Chicago  public 
schools  comes  as  a  fitting  reward  to  one  who  has  given  her  life 
to  their  advancement.  There  is  no  phase  of  their  work  with 
which  she  is  not  perfectly  acquainted.  There  has  been  no 
development  which  she  has  not  watched  closely,  if  indeed  she 
has  not  had  a  part  in  it.  .  .  .  The  election  of  a  woman  to  be 
superintendent  of  schools  in  the  second  largest  city  in  the  United 
States  is  in  violation  of  precedent.  If  any  man  among  the  can- 
didates had  possessed  all  the  qualifications  recognized  in  Mrs. 
Young  her  sex  might  have  been  against  her.  The  board  of 
education  tried  faithfully  to  select  the  best  equipped  individual 
for  the  important  place.  The  training,  experience,  and  admin- 
istrative ability  of  Mrs.  Young  were  strong  points  in  her  favor. 
That  they  were  strong  enough  to  win  in  spite  of  sex  and  in  the 
face  of  competition  of  a  number  of  men  of  exceptional  qualifica- 
tions makes  the  honor  shown  her  all  the  more  notable.  The 
choice  of  a  Chicago  candidate  is  gratifying.  There  is  some 
advantage,  at  times,  in  introducing  a  leader  from  the  outside. 
But  every  such  choice  is  distinctly  discouraging  to  the  ambitious 
teacher  or  principal  already  in  the  ranks.  The  selection  of 
Mrs.  Young  has  a  twofold  interest.  It  is  a  recognition  of 
faithful  service  in  the  Chicago  schools.  It  will  bring  fresh 
inspiration  and  encouragement  to  women  teachers  all  over  the 
United  States.  The  new  superintendent  has  a  great  task  before 
her.  The  wise  administration  of  Chicago's  educational  plant 
demands  the  best  that  is  in  any  individual.  That  Mrs.  Young's 
career  may  be  marked  by  wisdom,  harmony,  progress,  and 
unquestioned  success  will  be  the  wish  of  every  citizen  as  she 
takes  up  her  responsible  work. 


176  Ella  Flagg  Young 

That  the  board  of  education  made  a  thorough  search 
for  a  competent  person  for  the  position  is  evidenced 
by  the  length  of  time  spent  in  making  the  selection  and 
the  number  of  persons  examined  for  the  place.  Fur- 
thermore, that  her  election  to  the  position  was  partly 
felt  by  many  as  an  honor  to  her  long  service  in  the 
schools  is  clear  from  the  statement  of  a  prominent  citi- 
zen and  a  man  in  an  official  position  in  the  city  at  the 
time.  "We  expected  the  board  of  education  to  honor 
Mrs.  Young,"  he  said,  "by  making  her  superintendent 
for  a  year  while  looking  about  for  a  man  fully  fitted 
for  the  place.  But  imagine  our  surprise  when  the 
schools  began  to  move  with  unprecedented  smoothness 
and  rapidity  in  the  right  direction  and  we  were  com- 
pelled to  recognize  that  instead  of  honoring  Mrs. 
Young,  we  were  actually  learning  for  the  first  time  how 
well  the  position  of  superintendent  could  be  managed." 

We  have  already  pointed  out  the  years  of  experience 
and  growth  of  Mrs.  Young  during  her  connection  with 
the  public  schools  of  Chicago.  From  the  time  she  left 
the  schools  in  1899  until  the  time  of  her  election  to  the 
superintendency  she  had  been  going  forward  in  the 
study  and  interpretation  of  educational  thought  of  this 
country  and  Europe,  Her  career  at  the  University,  as 
we  have  already  pointed  out,  brought  her  into  connec- 
tion with  John  Dewey  and  his  work  as  an  educational 
thinker.  From  her  year  of  travel  In  Europe  she  had 
gained  Insight  into  the  practice  of  education  in  the 
principal  cities  of  the  world  which  in  turn  she  could  use 
for  the  administration  of  schools.  In  the  Normal 
School  she  concerned  herself  directly  with  the  teaching 
force  of  the  city  and  found  many  occasions  even  before 


Making  Over  a  City  School  System         177 

she  entered  Into  the  office  of  superintendent  to  help 
mold  the  trend  of  affairs  in  the  schools.  At  no  time 
after  leaving  the  schools  ten  years  before  had  she  lost 
touch  with  the  work,  so  that  she  needed  to  spend  no 
time  learning  her  position  after  being  elected. 

The  work  done  by  Mrs.  Young  during  the  six  years 
of  her  office  as  superintendent  cannot  be  told  in  a  brief 
chapter.  Like  all  of  her  other  work,  the  great  thing 
she  did  as  superintendent  was  to  mold  and  influence 
character.  From  the  office  boy  or  girl  in  her  depart- 
ment to  principals,  from  pupils  to  teacher,  her  influence 
was  continually  going  out  and  touching  vital  spots  and 
making  life  brighter  for  each  one.  In  spite  of  the 
breadth  of  the  problems  and  the  intricacy  of  the  tasks 
which  Mrs.  Young  undertook  during  her  administra- 
tion, it  is  necessary  to  summarize  in  some  fashion  the 
main  events  of  the  period.  The  first  chapter  of  this 
book  gave  a  general  summary  of  the  period  and  showed 
that  the  movements  in  Chicago  were  really  nation-wide 
tendencies.  In  the  present  chapter  appear  in  some 
detail  the  actual  accomplishments  of  Mrs.  Young  as  a 
superintendent. 

During  the  six  years  that  Mrs.  Young  was  superin- 
tendent the  schools  of  Chicago  grew  very  rapidly  In 
numbers  and  In  scope  of  work.  A  bare  outline  of  the 
principal  items  of  growth  will  suffice  to  show  how  great 
was  the  task  of  keeping  up  with  needs  of  the  city,  to 
say  nothing  of  making  headway  in  Improvements. 
However,  Chicago  schools  have  always  had  this  race 
to  keep  abreast  the  growing  needs  of  the  population,  so 
that  the  period  from  1909  to  19 15  is  not  unique  In  this 
respect.    It  Is  unique,  however.  In  that  it  actually  made 


178  Ella  Flagg  Young 

many  revolutionary  provisions  in  the  education  of  the 
people.  All  of  this  will  be  mentioned  as  we  proceed. 
The  following  table  may  serve  to  give  some  of  the  facts 
in  the  case : 

Membership  of  Elementary  Schools 


1909 

1915 

Increase 

Primary  grades 
135,490.3 

Primary  grades 
147,473-8 

11,983-5 

Grammar  grades 
86,5147 

Grammar  grades 
101,630.7 

15,116.0 

Total  increase  in  both  grades  27,099.5. 

It  Is  worthy  of  notice  in  this  connection  that  the 
increase  in  membership  during  the  six  years  Is  larger 
in  the  upper  grades  than  in  the  primary  grades.  Un- 
doubtedly, many  of  the  Improvements  made  In  the 
schools  during  this  period  account  for  the  continuance 
of  children  into  the  upper  grades.  The  most  significant 
thing  of  the  work  of  Mrs.  Young  as  superintendent 
was  her  insistent  appeal  to  keep  the  children  going  on 
into  the  higher  grades.  A  record  of  retardation  dur- 
ing this  time  shows  the  same  facts  as  to  success  of  chil- 
dren In  advancing  as  that  of  the  table  above.  In  a  still 
more  effective  way  the  membership  of  the  high  school 
shows  this  point: 

Membership  of  High  Schools 

1909  191 5  Increase 

15,687.6  25,322.3  9,634-7 


Making  Over  a  City  School  System  179 

The  increase,  In  other  words,  of  the  primary  depart- 
ment during  the  six  years  was  eight  per  cent  over  that 
of  the  date  previously,  seventeen  per  cent  in  the  gram- 
mar department,  while  in  the  high  schools  the  increase 
during  this  period  was  sixty-one  per  cent.  Such  an 
Increase  in  high  schools  was  unprecedented  in  the 
city,  though  throughout  the  country  high  schools  have 
been  growing  at  a  very  rapid  rate  during  the  past  ten 
years. 

In  the  number  of  schools  the  city  was  acquiring  there 
was  also  a  rapid  increase.  In  1909  there  were  239 
elementary  schools,  while  In  19 15  there  were  306;  in 
1909,  seventeen  high  schools,  and  twenty-two  in  191 5. 
The  number  of  rooms  in  the  elementary  schools  in 
1909  was  5,552,  while  In  1915  It  was  6,815.  Teachers 
In  all  schools  In  1909  numbered  6,284;  '^^  ^9^S'>  75825, 
a  gain  of  1,541  during  the  six  years.  Manual-training 
rooms  and  cooking  classes  were  added  as  rapidly  as 
money  could  be  found  for  them;  in  1909  there  were 
159  manual-training  rooms,  61  cooking  rooms;  in  1915 
there  were  231  of  the  former  and  199  of  the  latter. 

During  the  same  period  the  cost  of  education,  like 
the  cost  of  everything  else.  Increased.  The  fact  that 
education  In  Industrial  and  vocational  lines  requiring 
expensive  equipment  was  growing  so  rapidly  during  this 
period,  and  the  fact  that,  as  shown  above,  attendance 
in  higher  grades  grew  so  much  more  rapidly  than  that  In 
lower  grades,  are  further  sufficient  reasons  why  the  cost 
of  education  In  the  city  should  go  up  at  this  time.  The 
table  showing  relative  percentage  of  membership  In 
primary,  grammar,  and  high  schools  and  the  total  cost 
per  pupil  is  here  given: 


l8o  Ella  Flagg  Young 

Percentage  Percentage  Percentage  Cost  per  pu- 
Year  in  primary     in  grammar      in  high       pit  in  whole 


grades 

grades 

school 

system 

I909-I9IO. .. 

.        56.9 

36.5 

6.6 

36.11 

I9IOI9II. . . 

56.5 

36.5 

7.0 

37.52 

19II-I9I2. . . 

.        55.5 

37-0 

7.5 

39.61 

I9I2-I9I3. . . 

55.9 

37-4 

7.6 

40.85 

I9I3-I9I4... 

51-3 

34-7 

7.5 

42.82 

I9I4-I9I5.-- 

50.21 

34-6 

8.62 

42.38 

In  addition  to  all  the  work  of  the  office  of  superin- 
tendent of  schools,  and  in  addition  to  the  personal  and 
professional  work  with  teachers  through  regularly  visit- 
ing schools  and  lecturing  on  educational  matters,  Mrs. 
Young  found  it  possible  to  carry  out  a  tremendous 
amount  of  constructive  measures  in  all  lines  of  admin- 
istration. A  mere  list  of  her  recommendations  which 
were  adopted  by  the  board  shows  in  some  measure  her 
activity  during  the  six  years  of  her  connection  with  that 
office.  Many  other  measures  and  improvements  during 
the  time  were  fostered  by  her  and  owed  their  success 
to  her  energy  and  foresight,  so  that  the  list  here  given 
of  accomplishments  represents  only  a  part  of  her  con- 
structive work.  Taken  alone,  however,  the  scope  of 
recommendations  in  this  outline  marks  Mrs.  Young's 
work  in  the  schools  as  an  epoch.  There  Is  no  attempt 
to  systematize  the  recommendations,  except  that  they 
are  given  in  chrdnological  order  in  time  of  their  intro- 
duction to  the  board  of  education.  They  are  as 
follows : 

Recommendation  to  limit  the  amount  of  promotional  work 
of  a  teacher  in  one  year  to  two  courses,  a  recommendation 
aimed  against  cramming,  prevalent  when  she  became  superin- 
tendent. 


Making  Over  a  City  School  System         i8i 

Change  the  system  of  rating  teachers  fron"  percentage  to 
descriptive  words  —  superior,  excellent,  good,  fair. 

Added  oral  reading  to  the  subjects  in  examination  for  admis- 
sion to  Chicago  Normal  College. 

To  furnish  teacher,  equipment,  books,  educational  supplies 
for  the  first  open-air  room. 

To  furnish  teachers  whose  sole  duty  is  to  assist  children  to 
overcome  speech  defects. 

To  appoint  extra  teachers  (principals'  clerks)  in  all  high 
schools  and  all  elementary  schools  with  a  membership  of  1,125 
or  more. 

To  appoint  assistants  to  principals  of  high  schools. 

To  limit  the  number  of  seats  in  classrooms  of  new  buildings 
to  forty-five  (a  recommendation  which  has  not  been  followed; 
number  now  forty-eight). 

To  reduce  the  number  of  seats  in  classrooms  in  old  buildings 
from  fifty-four  to  forty-eight.  (Some  principals  have  held  on 
to  the  fifty-four  in  order  to  keep  up  total  membership.) 

To  adopt  new  sentence  in  the  rule  concerning  deduction  from 
salary  on  account  of  absence  because  of  personal  illness ;  pay 
refund  of  difference  betw^een  regular  salary  and  amount  paid 
substitute  from  third  to  twelfth  week  of  absence. 

To  introduce  two-year  vocational  courses  into  high  schools. 

To  introduce  muscular  system  of  penmanship. 

Revise  course  of  study  in  elementary  schools. 

Establish  substitute  centers  in  different  parts  of  the  city, 
instead  of  gathering  substitutes  in  superintendent's  office  daily. 

Grant  one-year  certificates  to  teachers  of  the  industries  with- 
out examination. 

Appoint  women  teachers  of  physical  education  for  girls  in 
high  schools. 

Permit  special  social  workers  to  study  the  causes  of  absences 
in  one  of  the  elementary  schools. 

Add  a  modern  language  that  has  a  great  literature  to  lan- 
guage course  in  any  high  school  that  has  twenty-five  pupils 
applying  for  the  language. 

Establish  Lucy  S.  Flower  high  school  —  vocational  school 
for  girls. 

Establish  review  summer-classes  in  three  high  schools. 

Establish    industrial   course   in   grades   6,    7,    8    in    certain 


1 82  Ella  Flagg   Young 

schools — number  increased  from  three  to  twenty-five  in  three 
years. 

Organize  prevocational  classes  in  technical  high  schools. 

Elect  councilors  (deans)  for  girls  in  high  schools. 

Organize  teachers*  councils. 

Submitted  plan  for  presenting  subject  of  personal  purity  to 
high-school  pupils. 

Recommended  conducting  high  schools  on  six-hour-a-day 
plan. 

That  all  schools  be  supplied  and  equipped  with  divided 
window  shades. 

Recommended  the  adoption  of  a  rotary  (modified  Gary)  plan 
in  crowded  schools. 

Revised  elementary  course  of  study  aiming  to  have  greater 
concentration  of  effort  —  revision  work  done  by  committee  of 
principals  and  elementary-school  teacher  and  superintendents. 

That  high  school  gymnasiums  be  kept  open  ninety  minutes 
after  close  of  school,  and  elementary  gymnasiums  thirty  minutes. 

Reported  on  educational  methods  in  Europe. 

Submitted  plan  by  which  change  in  salaries  would  take  place 
on  either  January  or  June  first.  (Recommendation  was  not 
adopted. ) 

That  the  bureau  of  vocational  guidance  be  taken  entirely  into 
the  school  system. 

Many  of  these  recommendations  were  far-reaching 
in  their  effects  upon  the  life  of  the  teachers  and  children 
in  the  schools.  Mrs.  Young's  ideals  of  reducing  the 
numbers  of  pupils  to  a  teacher,  of  keeping  the  children 
and  teachers  well  physically,  of  placing  handwork  in 
all  grades,  particularly  a  kind  in  the  upper  grades  that 
would  have  a  vocational  value  for  the  children,  of 
raising  the  intelligence  of  teachers  by  making  them  feel 
free  to  express  their  own  ideas  and  needs,  the  increase 
of  salaries  to  a  point  where  teachers  and  principals 
were  economically  competent  to  live  —  all  these  ideals 
found  expression  in  the  acts  which  she  advanced  and 
fought  for  during  her  term  of  office.   To  say  that  the 


Making  Over  a  City  School  System  183 

schools  have  been  transformed  in  some  respects  by  her 
work  is  to  put  the  gains  of  the  city  mildly. 

As  already  pointed  out,  no  change  was  greater  than 
that  of  vocational  work  in  the  schools  of  the  city. 
Advocates  of  vocational  training  under  a  separate  sys- 
tem of  schools,  "  a  dual  system,"  cannot  realize  in 
Chicago  that  the  secondary  schools  here  are  already 
more  largely  vocational  than  they  are  anything  else. 
In  numbers,  students  pursuing  vocational  and  technical 
courses  outnumber  those  taking  the  purely  academic 
subjects.  Cost  of  equipment  alone  has  stood  in  the  way 
of  pushing  this  kind  of  work  far  beyond  its  present 
status.  A  report  made  in  March  of  19 14  showed  the 
relative  numbers  of  students  pursuing  the  various 
courses  offered  in  the  high  schools. 

Course  Membership 

Academic    13,063 

Two-year  college 276 

Four-year  vocational  and  technical 5,878 

Two-year  vocational 7,oio 

Prevocational 624 

Apprentice    482 

Unclassified    167 

Total  membership 27,500 

Total  vocational 14,270 

Per  cent   vocational 50 

Per  cent  two-year  vocational 25 

In  the  above  table  the  two-year  vocational  member- 
ship is  shown  as  including  one-quarter  of  the  entire 
high  school  population.  These  courses  were  estab- 
lished in  19 10,  showing  that  they  had  grown  with 
amazing  rapidity  to  a  place  of  such  importance.     A 


184  Ella  Flagg  Young 

summary  of  the  vocational  and  technical  courses  in  the 
school  will  show  how  completely  Mrs.  Young  covered 
the  entire  field  in  the  preparation  of  children  for  their 
life  work.    The  list  follows : 

1.  Itidustrial  centers  in  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  grades 
in  twenty-five  elementary  schools  as  enumerated  above. 

2.  Prevocational  courses  in  the  technical  high  schools  made 
for  boys  and  girls  over  age  but  behind  in  their  grade.  Children 
might  enter  these  courses  after  having  completed  the  fifth  grade 
of  academic  work. 

3.  Two-year  vocational  courses  in  the  twenty-two  high 
schools  of  the  city.  These  courses  number  eleven,  as  follows: 
accounting,  shorthand,  mechanical  drawing,  designing,  pattern- 
making,  carpentry,  machine-shop,  electricity,  household  arts, 
printing,  horticulture.  Two  or  more  of  these  courses  are  given 
in  all  the  schools,  and  most  could  be  given  by  practically  all. 

4.  Four-year  vocational  and  technical  courses,  as  follows: 
commercial,  office  preparatory,  technical,  general  trades,  house- 
hold arts,  arts,  and  architecture.  These  courses  are  given  not 
only  in  the  technical  high-schools,  but  also  in  most  of  the  schools 
where  the  general,  the  science,  and  the  normal-school  prepara- 
tory courses  are  given.  There  are  eight  high  schools  in  the  city 
where  the  four-year  technical  courses  are  given.  Mrs.  Young 
believed  very  strongly  in  the  so-called  "  cosmopolitan "  high 
school,  a  school  giving  all  lines  of  work,  from  Greek  and  art  to 
cooking  and  agriculture. 

5.  Apprenticeship  courses  in  many  lines  of  industry,  such  as 
carpentry,  electrical  workers,  plumbers,  machinists,  sheet-metal 
workers,  bakers,  and  druggists. 

6.  Two-year  college  courses,  or  junior-college  work,  for 
technical  education  and  engineering,  in  several  of  the  high 
schools. 

7.  Evening  school  courses  in  more  than  twenty  vocational 
lines  of  work. 

Sufficient  detail  has  been  given  in  discussing  the  work 
of  Mrs.  Young  for  vocational  training  to  show  what 
the  public  schools  can  do  under  proper  management  to 
handle  the  preparation  of  children  for  industrial  and 


Making  Over  a  City  School  System         185 

social  demands  of  the  time.  In  all  this  movement  no 
one  has  grasped  more  fully  than  she  the  demands  of 
the  times  for  practical  education  and  the  responsibility 
of  the  public  school  to  meet  these  demands.  Her  faith 
in  the  possibility  of  the  school  to  do  such  a  task  seemed 
unlimited.  In  answer  to  the  criticism  of  opponents  of 
the  school  as  it  now  exists,  that  it  had  been  established 
for  the  narrower  purpose  of  giving  children  power  to 
read  and  write,  she  always  insisted  that  the  school 
belonged  to  the  public  and  should  be  made  to  supply 
the  needs  of  the  people  as  they  arose,  rather  than  to 
try  to  hold  to  some  supposed  scheme  held  by  men  gen- 
erations ago.  It  was  this  feeling  that  led  her  to  build 
up,  as  far  as  money  and  school  board  would  permit,  a 
really  modern  educational  institution  during  her  six 
years  as  superintendent. 

Not  only  did  Mrs.  Young  work  to  advance  voca- 
tional education,  but  she  attempted  to  reorganize  the 
academic  work  of  the  schools.  In  19 10  she  called 
together  committees  of  teachers,  principals,  and  super- 
intendents and  gave  over  to  them  the  charge  of  rewrit- 
ing the  course  of  study  for  the  elementary  schools,  first 
outlining  the  ideas  which  she  hoped  to  see  advanced  by 
the  work.  She  arranged  her  committees  by  subjects  in 
the  curriculum.  By  this  means  she  secured  a  course 
made  out  by  a  set  of  persons  specializing  in  a  particular 
line  of  study.  For  thoroughness  the  course  surpassed 
anything  done  in  the  schools  since  the  days  when  Super- 
intendent Wells  wrote  out  his  course,  based  on  oral 
instruction,  in  1862.  Each  committee  systematized  the 
material  in  a  given  subject  from  the  kindergarten  to 
the  end  of  the  curriculum. 


1 86  Ella  Flagg  Young 

After  a  trial  of  three  years  on  this  course  of  study, 
Mrs.  Young  again  called  together  principals,  teachers, 
and  superintendents  and  outlined  a  plan  for  concentrat- 
ing effort  in  the  grades  upon  particular  lines  of  work. 
The  plan  was  an  *'  intermittent"  one  whereby  a  subject 
could  be  used  intensively  for  a  year  and  then  dropped 
for  a  year,  or  rather  used  in  connection  with  other 
subjects.  Arithmetic  was  not  to  be  studied  as  a  separate 
subject  every  semester  for  eight  grades,  but  was  to  be 
made  auxiliary  to  constructive  or  handwork  in  some 
of  the  grades.  The  same  was  true  of  penmanship  and 
some  of  the  other  branches.  If  a  course  could  be 
worked  out  on  this  principle  and  thoroughly  under- 
stood and  appreciated  by  teachers,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  much  time  might  be  saved  and  the  work  made 
more  effective  and  real  for  the  children.  It  follows  the 
recent  discussions  of  a  locus  for  each  particular  study, 
making  the  material  correspond  to  the  interests  and 
needs  of  the  growing  children,  rather  than  following 
some  preconceived  logical  arrangement  of  subjects. 

In  connection  with  her  effort  to  make  the  academic 
as  well  as  vocational  work  effective,  Mrs.  Young  made 
the  most  systematic  and  tireless  search  for  the  best 
books  for  the  teachers  and  children.  Reading  and 
spelling  and  penmanship  were  subjected  to  the  most 
careful  revision.  After  many  years  of  experimental 
work  on  penmanship,  she  went  back  to  the  "muscular" 
form  of  writing  which  she  had  used  and  advocated  at 
the  time  her  work  in  the  Skinner  School  won  an  annual 
prize  in  the  subject.  She  set  a  committee  to  work  on  a 
set  of  school  readers,  after  herself  going  over  a  large 
number  of  them.  This  committee  selected  a  set  of  books 


Making  Over  a  City  School  System         187 

for  the  school  which  have  proved  adequate  in  teaching 
the  subject  in  the  grades.  The  unsatisfactory  condition 
of  spelling  led,  through  her  efforts,  to  the  selection  of 
a  committee  of  teachers  and  principals  to  compile  a 
book  on  the  subject  for  the  schools.  It  is  evident  that 
Mrs.  Young  in  her  zeal  for  vocational  and  technical 
education  did  not  forget  the  academic  needs  of  the 
schools  at  any  time. 

Even  more  anxiety  was  shown  by  Mrs.  Young  for 
the  physical  welfare  of  children  and  teachers  of  the 
schools.  Her  belief  that  health  is  a  pre-requisite  for 
learning  and  intelligence  drove  her  to  work,  at  all  times 
for  this  cause.  Not  only  did  she  plan  for  those  afflicted 
with  diseases  or  with  maimed  bodies,  but  her  greatest 
interest  was  to  keep  the  sound  child  well  and  strong. 
In  her  lectures  before  the  teachers  of  the  city  she  was 
accustomed  to  say  that  "children  come  to  school  in 
September  ruddy  and  strong  and  leave  the  schools  in 
June  pale  and  broken."  It  was  her  greatest  wish  that 
this  condition  might  be  remedied,  that  the  school  might 
itself  be  a  place  where  the  sick  child  might  be  made 
well  and  the  weak  child  strong.  She  encouraged  open- 
air  rooms,  furnishing  teacher  and  equipment;  she 
fought  with  engineers  for  a  sensible  arrangement  of 
ventilation  and  for  a  chance  to  have  the  windows  of 
the  rooms  opened  frequently  enough  to  furnish  pure 
air.  In  the  arrangement  of  windows  for  lighting  she 
not  only  provided  for  the  best  kind  of  blinds,  but  in 
all  the  new  buildings  she  insisted  on  the  construction 
of  a  room  that  protected,  as  far  as  possible,  the  eyes  of 
the  children. 

In  the  conduct  of  her  office  Mrs.  Young's  adminis- 


Ella  Flagg  Young 


tration  was  unique  in  the  history  of  the  Chicago 
superintendency.  From  her  first  day  in  office  she 
opened  her  door  to  teachers  and  the  public,  and  during 
the  entire  six  years  she  was  always  accessible  to  anyone 
at  almost  any  time.  Not  only  did  she  keep  open  house 
in  her  office,  but  her  policy  was  one  of  open  publicity. 
The  newspapers  of  the  city  were  given  every  opportu- 
nity to  print  news  of  interest  to  the  people  on  school 
affairs.  Her  belief  that  the  best  interests  of  schools 
were  identical  with  those  of  the  people  led  her  to 
encourage  in  every  way  possible  the  general  intelligence 
on  public-school  affairs.  Her  policy  as  an  administrator 
was  to  keep  in  the  open  in  all  of  her  dealings.  She 
refused  to  do  anything  that  she  could  not  freely  discuss 
through  the  newspapers  with  the  people  whose  children 
were  in  the  schools. 

Whether  such  a  policy  was  easy  every  one  can  judge 
who  has  had  any  experience  with  an  office  hedged  about 
as  the  superintendency  is  by  political  and  private  inter- 
ests. A  policy  of  publicity,  of  open  dealing,  is  the  most 
disconcerting  arrangement  to  the  management  of 
politically  controlled  institutions.  (Mr.  Dewey's  com- 
parison of  Mrs.  Young  and  Mr.  Roosevelt  as  to 
preparedness  on  the  lines  of  their  interests  might  well 
be  continued  in  this  matter  of  keeping  the  public  in- 
formed as  to  policies  through  the  daily  press.)  In 
Chicago  the  people  know  more  about  school  affairs 
now,  have  a  keener  sense  of  the  inside  of  affairs  by  far 
than  they  did  six  years  ago.  Bodies  of  public-spirited 
citizens  have  been  taken  into  the  responsibility  for 
the  welfare  of  the  schools  as  they  never  were  before 
in  the  history  of  Chicago  schools.     All  of  this  spread 


Making  Over  a  City  School  System         189 

of  intelligence  has  been  a  part  of  the  effort  of  Mrs. 
Young  in  dealing  with  the  educational  problems  of  the 
city. 

If  one  of  the  marks  of  leadership  I's  the  power  to 
delegate  responsibility  to  others  and  secure  active  and 
intelligent  cooperation,  Mrs.  Young  was  a  leader  of 
high  degree.  She  entrusted  work  to  others  and  gave 
them  free  rein  in  doing  it.  Her  democratic  principles 
credited  others  with  judgment  and  self-control,  so,  when 
she  had  assigned  some  person  with  a  task  to  perform, 
she  delegated  responsibility  for  the  finishing  of  that 
task.  Hers  was  always  the  teaching  spirit  that  asked 
for  independence  and  loyalty  in  those  with  whom  she 
dealt,  always  placing  greater  emphasis  upon  the  worth 
of  spirit  shown  in  the  performance  of  the  work  than 
in  the  job  itself.  But  her  confidence  in  the  integrity  of 
others  often  led  her  to  make  appointments  to  positions 
that  failed  to  live  up  to  the  trust  she  reposed  in  them. 
She  was  not  always  fortunate,  therefore,  in  the  people 
she  chose  to  do  particular  tasks.  A  politician  binds  his 
appointees  to  him  personally,  but  Mrs.  Young  never 
tied  strings  to  the  jobs  she  filled.  It  happened  more 
than  once  that  she  found  herself  beset  by  some  of  the 
persons  she  might  have  had  reason  to  expect  loyalty 
from  in  critical  moments  in  the  management  of  schools. 
Mrs.  Young  herself  would  be  the  last  person  to  hold 
up  to  such  a  one  his  failure  to  live  up  to  his  obligations 
either  to  her  or  to  the  place  for  which  he  was  selected. 
She  hated  the  shirker  and  refused  tolerance  for  work 
half  done.  In  some  cases  where  she  made  sacrifices  to 
advance  another  to  a  post  of  prominence  she  found  she 
had  to  count  on  enmity  and  sometimes  treachery. 


190  Ella  Flagg  Young 

From  the  standpoint  of  current  political  practice 
Mrs.  Young's  management  of  the  superintendency 
might  be  considered  unique  in  its  failure.  Instead  of 
building  up  a  machine  from  her  friends  that  she  could 
rely  upon,  she  even  went  to  the  other  extreme  in 
appointing  to  places  of  responsibility  men  and  women 
who  were  opposed  to  her  point  of  view  and  were  often 
her  antagonists.  All  persons  were  treated  on  the  same 
level  throughout  her  administration,  so  that  at  no  time 
could  she  count  on  an  official  clique  in  her  undertakings. 
Her  own  integrity  and  her  own  industry  gave  her  con- 
fidence in  herself  to  meet  and  handle  above  board  all 
the  problems  of  the  office. 

She  failed  even  to  provide  herself  with  a  secretary, 
as  her  predecessors  had  done,  until  the  last  year  of  her 
term  of  office,  when  the  press  of  work  became  so  great 
that  she  was  compelled  to  have  help.  Her  failure  to 
build  up  a  machine  left  her  without  that  support  needed 
to  keep  in  touch  with  all  the  forces  at  opposition  with 
the  policy  of  an  administration.  The  failure  to  provide 
adequate  assistants  for  the  carrying  out  of  her  ideas 
led  directly  to  the  attacks  made  upon  her  toward  the 
close  of  her  term  of  office.  What  Mrs.  Young  accom- 
plished as  superintendent  of  schools  she  did  almost 
single-handed.  No  body  of  strong  men  and  women 
advised  her  on  financial  and  educational  matters,  except 
in  friendly  and  disinterested  ways.  As  pointed  out  by 
one  of  her  political  enemies  a  year  ago,  the  greatness 
of  Mrs.  Young  showed  most  clearly  in  her  handling 
the  tremendous  load  of  financial,  political,  and  educa- 
tional sides  of  the  administration  without  a  single 
helper  at  a  time  when  every  ounce  of  energy  of  united 


Making  Over  a  City  School  System         191 

influences  was  against  her.  Doubtless  with  party  organ- 
ization she  could  have  held  her  place  of  power  with 
greater  ease  and  for  a  longer  time,  but  at  no  time  in  her 
life  did  Mrs.  Young  ever  assume  the  role  of  dictator  or 
boss.  Her  strength  of  character  lay  in  her  own  integ- 
rity and  her  unwavering  confidence  in  the  integrity  of 
others,  a  confidence  that  was  often  taken  advantage 
of  by  those  not  deserving  of  it. 

In  the  summer  of  19 14  Mrs.  Young  was  sent  as  a 
member  of  a  commission  to  Europe  to  study  education 
and  other  conditions.  Her  investigations  were  con- 
fiined  in  the  main  to  vocational  training  in  the  public 
schools  of  England.  On  account  of  the  outbreak  of  the 
war  during  the  summer  the  investigation  was  cut  short 
before  reaching  the  Continent,  except,  briefly,  Copen- 
hagen, Christiania,  and  Stockholm.  From  the  stand- 
point of  broadening  the  scope  of  vocational  education 
and  suggestion  for  new  lines,  this  report  was  very 
valuable,  though  its  influence  has  not  been  marked  on 
the  schools  of  Chicago. 

It  is  not  alone  in  the  United  States  that  manufacturing  and 
commercial  Interests  have  in  the  last  twenty  years  aroused  deep 
interest  in  industrial  and  vocational  education.  It  is  the  sub- 
ject that  is  uppermost  in  the  minds  of  school  boards  and  edu- 
cators in  England  and  Scotland. 

For  the  day  elementary  schools  and  high  schools 
the  report  gives  only  woodwork  for  boys  and  domes- 
tic economy  for  girls,  though  none  of  these  offered 
the  technical  training  of  Chicago  high  schools.  More 
attention  was  given  to  experimental  physics  and  chem- 
istry than  in  our  schools.  Some  attention  is  given 
in  day  and  evening  schools  to  technical  training,  but 


192  Ella  Flagg  Young 

influences  of  employers  have  been  against  much  exten- 
sion of  this  work.    It  says : 

To  counteract  conditions  leading  to  dissipation  of  human  life 
and  power,  trade  or  continuation  schools  are  increasing  in 
number  and  multiplying  the  facilities  for  city  boys  and  girls  to 
enter  the  skilled  industries.  Courses  are  offered  in  subjects  that 
are  close  to  the  every  day  demands  of  society.  The  following 
courses  have  not  as  yet  been  included  in  our  trade  or  industrial 
schools  for  boys  between  twelve  and  sixteen  years  of  age: 
bakery  and  confectionery;  carnage  and  motor-body  building; 
hairdressing;  professional  cookery ;  professional  waiting;  silver- 
smithing,  jewelry,  and  engraving;  tailoring;  training  for  metal 
trades.  In  evening  continuation  schools  for  apprentices  work 
similar  to  that  in  our  schools  is  found,  but  in  addition  the 
following  courses  are  given:  brass  finishers'  work;  tinsmiths* 
work;  mining;  motor-car  engineering;  plaster  work;  uphol- 
stery; wood  carving;  coach  trimming;  bread  baking  and  con- 
fectionery; tailors*  work;  tailoresses*  work;  flour  millers* 
work;  hairdressers'  work;  art  metal  work;  stone  and  marble 
carving ;  forestry ;  ambulance ;  sick  nursing. 

During  her  superlntendency  Mrs.  Young  found  time 
to  write  and  lecture  extensively.  She  gave  several 
addresses  before  the  National  Education  Association, 
among  which  her  presidential  address  delivered  at  San 
Francisco  in  191 1  Is  the  most  conspicuous.  In  this 
paper  on  "Hypothesis  in  education,"  she  contends  that 
since  science  had  moved  from  the  conception  of  a  static 
to  a  dynamic  world,  so  education  must  move  from 
"  final  determination  of  the  Ideal  of  education,  which  is 
destructive  of  life,"  to  "  the  large  ideals  of  education, 
with  its  many  complexities,  and  the  tentative  conditions 
for  which  we  watch  and  through  which  we  adjust  our 
ideals."  Nowhere  has  anyone  stated  more  clearly  or 
comprehensively  than  In  this  address  the  demands  of 
modern  thought  and  conditions  on  education.    In  this 


Making  Over  a  City  School  System         193 

brief  paper  Mrs.  Young  shows  that  she  had  grown 
both  in  adequacy  of  expression  and  grasp  of  the  modern 
point  of  view  over  some  of  her  earlier  writings.  Her 
utterances  on  education  are  those  of  the  pragmatist. 
In  her  statement  of  the  evolution  of  life  and  reality 
she  says: 

In  classic  and  mediaeval  times,  nature  was  a  world  of  perma- 
nent things,  the  problem  of  science  dealt  with  essences,  and 
even  so  late  as  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  heat  was 
supposed  to  be  an  imponderable  substance,  and  light  to  consist 
of  luminous  corpuscles.  In  the  world  of  mind,  the  human  race 
was  supposed  to  be  a  special,  final  creation,  and  the  problems  of 
knowledge  dealt  with  the  fixed,  the  determined,  the  unchanging. 
And  so  the  problem  of  education  dealt  with  the  acquisition  of 
the  formulations,  the  statements  of  great  minds  that  had  written 
and  spoken.  .  .  .  With  the  introduction  and  dissemination  of 
the  hypothesis  of  evolution  there  is  general  appreciation,  in 
varj'ing  degrees,  of  the  fact  that  theories  of  nature  and  knowl- 
edge, that  institutions  of  state  and  of  social  life,  that  methods 
in  industry  and  in  commerce,  that  ideals  of  education  and  of  a 
worthy  life,  are  all  subject  to  change  in  a  changing  world ;  in 
brief,  that  finality  both  in  the  natural  world  and  in  the  spiritual 
world  is  death ;  that  change,  adjustment,  is  life.  ...  I  believe 
that  if  we  would  rise  above  the  idea  of  finality  in  things  spiritual 
we  might  have  the  term  the  educational  imagination,  with  a 
significance  corresponding  to  that  of  the  scientific  imagination. 

Probably  the  most  important  writing  Mrs.  Young 
has  ever  done  is  found  in  her  annual  reports  as  superin- 
tendent of  schools.  She  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  in 
constructing  these  reports,  and  her  ideas  and  recom- 
mendations form  important  landmarks  in  city  school 
reports.  As  educational  documents  they  rank  with  those 
of  Wm.  T.  Harris  when  superintendent  of  St.  Louis 
many  years  ago.  Each  year  she  takes  up  a  new  phase 
of  the  problem  of  administration  and  develops  it  in 


194  -^^^^  Pliigg  Young 

such  a  way  as  to  make  it  effective  to  teachers  and  pa- 
trons of  the  schools.  It  is  impossible  to  give  in  detail 
the  material  written  by  her  in  these  reports  during  her 
six  years  as  superintendent,  but  a  brief  analysis  of  each 
one  can  be  set  forth. 

For  the  year  1909-1910  Mrs.  Young  discussed  ques- 
tions of  salary  adjustment,  revision  of  the  course  of 
study,  and  flushing  the  rooms  with  fresh  air  regularly. 
In  the  revision  that  had  been  made  during  the  year 
under  her  direction  she  had  tried  to  get  a  balanced 
amount  of  time  for  handwork.   She  says : 

Every  elementary  school  should  be  equipped  with  a  manual- 
training  shop,  a  kitchen,  and  a  sewing-room.  The  work  of  the 
teachers  in  the  classrooms  and  of  the  teachers  of  industrial  arts 
can  never  be  integrated  so  long  as  the  pupils  are  sent  away  from 
the  building  to  a  distant  school  to  be  taught  one  phase  of  the 
integration,  while  the  teachers,  busy  in  their  separate  buildings, 
have  no  opportunity  for  conference  and,  at  times,  for  cooperative 
work  in  class  instruction. 

Manual  training  and  household  arts,  promotion  and 
retardation,  fresh  air,  physical  education,  athletics, 
technical  training  for  girls,  training  in  morality,  ade- 
quate superintendence,  and  course  of  study  are  topics 
developed  by  Mrs.  Young  in  her  reports  for  19 10— 
191 1.  One  sentence  under  the  head  of  "Superintend- 
ence" reveals  the  belief  of  the  writer  in  a  democratic 
form  of  management:  "Schools  are  unified,  methods 
are  harmonized,  not  through  over-supervision  by  super- 
intendent or  principal,  but  by  a  truly  democratic 
supervision  which  would  make  conscious  and  effective 
in  every  member  of  the  education  department  the  truth 
that  the  public  school  exists  to  strengthen  character 
and  efficiency  in  the  individual,  citizenship  and  activity 


Making  Over  a  City  School  System         195 

in  the  nation."  She  endeavored  to  make  moral  educa- 
tion a  live  issue  in  the  schools,  and  emphasizes  the 
value  of  environment  of  children.  "  In  many  of  the 
day  schools  the  social  atmosphere  has  become  natural 
and  attractive  to  children,  though  there  are  yet  schools 
in  which  the  old  type  of  repression  holds  sway." 

In  1911-1912  the  superintendent  discussed  the  uni- 
fication of  the  school  system  of  the  city,  kindergartens, 
the  course  of  study,  the  three  R's,  children  with  de- 
fective speech,  high-school  course  of  study,  maximum 
membership  of  a  school,  use  of  the  building  during 
school  hours,  and  sex  hygiene.  She  returns  to  the  ques- 
tion of  integrating  the  academic  and  the  Industrial : 

When  our  schools  are  so  organized  and  equipped  that  the 
industrial  and  academic  work  enlighten  and  strengthen  each 
other,  the  vague,  the  indefinite,  will  be  almost  an  unknown 
element  in  our  class  work.  That  they  shall  enlighten  and 
strengthen  each  other,  the  industrial  equipment  must  be  in 
every  school  and  the  teachers  of  the  industries  must  be  recog- 
nized cooperative  members  of  the  school's  faculty  in  which  they 
teach — not  peripatetics,  who  are  rarely,  if  ever,  seen  by  the 
academic  teachers  of  the  children  whom  they  instruct. 

She  tried  to  bring  about  a  closer  relation  between 
the  kindergarten  and  the  work  of  the  grades  than  had 
existed  before.  Many  of  Mrs.  Young's  ideas  as  su- 
perintendent were  too  advanced  for  the  schools  of  the 
city.  The  reconstruction  of  the  three  R's  advocated  by 
her,  while  criticized  rather  severely  at  the  time,  has 
been  heralded  as  an  "  innovation  "  very  recently  In  the 
work  of  educational  writers  like  that  of  Abraham  Flex- 
ner  in  the  Modern  School.  Of  arithmetic  she  says 
that — 


196  Ella  Flagg  Young 


The  value  of  rapid,  abstract  work  with  whole  numbers  and 
fractions  within  the  limits  of  the  demands  in  the  counting- 
house,  the  shop,  and  the  factory,  seem  not  to  be  esteemed  in 
the  American  school.  One  who  would  clarify  the  American 
teaching  mind  so  that  the  difference  would  be  appreciated  be- 
tween drilling  drill  and  enlivening  accuracy  would  deserve 
lasting  recognition. 

In  the  English  of  the  schools  she  found  that  teach- 
ers were  very  generally  teaching  grammar  as  an  exact 
science  rather  than  the  living  language. 

If  study  of  the  native  tongue  does  not  lead  to  pleasure  in  test- 
ing its  possibilities  in  conveying  ideas,  the  school,  through  adher- 
ence to  the  study  of  a  dead  language,  has  undoubtedly  failed 
to  make  the  young  learner  conscious  of  the  richness  of  life  in  the 
growing,  changing,  living  language.  Thus  far,  the  teaching  of 
English  grammar  in  the  public  schools  of  America  has  been  of 
slight  value  in  developing  an  appreciation  of  shades  of  meaning 
as  expressed  through  a  nice  use  of  auxiliaries  and  prepositions. 

In  19 1 2-19 13  Mrs.  Young  deals  with  such  subjects 
as  modernizing  and  developing  a  school  system,  phys- 
ical education,  education  for  efficiency,  textbooks, 
teachers'  councils,  and  salaries.  Her  effort  to  concen- 
trate attention  of  pupil  and  teacher  on  a  few  subjects 
during  a  semester  Is  characteristic  of  her  work.  She 
wished  to  cut  all  subjects  studied  at  one  time  to  five, 
three  of  which  should  be  "basic,"  a  fourth  to  be  phys- 
ical education,  and  the  fifth  "cultural,  recreational,  oc- 
cupational." She  summarizes  the  progress  of  the  year 
by  stating  the  fight  over  vocational  education.  One 
party  to  the  fight  had  extolled  placing  occupations  in 
the  school  and  Insisted  that  academic  subjects  would 
take  care  of  themselves,  while  the  other  party  refused 
to  entertain  any  ideas  except  of  the  traditional  subjects, 


Making  Over  a  City  School  System  197 

and  rejoiced  over  the  recrudescence  of  the  three  R's  In 
the  schools.  "  Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  the  schools 
permeated  with  the  spirit  of  progress  have  responded 
more  quickly,  more  intelligently  to  the  call  for  rejuve- 
nation of  the  three  R's  than  have  the  schools  that  arc 
under  the  domination  of  the  past." 

Most  significant  in  this  report  is  Mrs.  Young's  posi- 
tion on  the  value  of  organization  of  teachers: 

The  evolution  of  group  consciousness  in  the  members  of  an 
educational  body  seven  thousand  strong  brings  to  the  surface 
tendencies  sometimes  ideal,  sometimes  dangerous.  Chief  among 
the  latter  is  that  of  disintegration  of  the  teaching  forces  into 
units  so  independent  of  each  other  that  they  become  what 
Gompers  terms  "  specialists  in  industry "  and  defines  to  be 
"  those  who  know  but  one  part  of  a  trade  and  absolutely 
nothing  of  any  other  part  of  it."  Chief  among  ideal  tendencies 
is  that  of  appreciation  of  the  value  of  the  work  undertaken  by 
the  group. 

Her  Insistence  on  democracy  in  school  organization 
was  common  throughout  her  reports.  She  says  in  her 
report  for  1913-1914  that — 

Out  of  the  custom  that  gave  principals  and  superintendents  the 
right  to  set  standards  there  has  evolved  an  ideal  of  administra- 
tive power  as  that  which  embodies  the  right  to  set  all  standards 
for  everybody  coming  within  its  jurisdiction.  This  ideal  was 
admissible  in  the  formative  stage  of  a  great  governmental  insti- 
tution, before  an  analysis  of  democracy  in  that  institution  was 
undertaken.  That  stage  has  been  passed.  We  are  now  face  to 
face  with  the  fact  that  a  democracy  whose  school  system  lacks 
confidence  in  the  ability  of  the  teachers  to  be  active  participants 
in  planning  its  aims  and  methods  is  a  logical  contradiction  of 
itself.  A  school  principal  talking  about  the  desirabillt>'  of  con- 
structing larger  buildings,  said  "There  should  be  forty-five 
divisions  in  a  school.  That  would  mean  forty-five  teachers  for 
the  principal  to  direct,  just  as  each  teacher  has  forty-five  children 
to  teach."    This  was  the  reasoning  of  a  member  of  the  ruling 


198  Ella  Flagg  Young 

class  in  an  aristocracy.  That  teachers  should  be  active  in 
planning  the  course  of  study  or  the  improvement  of  relaxation 
periods,  was  not  written  in  the  books  of  that  principal ;  neither 
was  the  power  of  initiative  written  in  the  categories  of  school 
children's  minds,  as  he  would  list  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  long-accepted  definition  of  the  social 
duties  of  teachers  —  the  development  in  their  immature  pupils 
of  a  spirit  contented  and  willing,  regardless  of  their  desires  and 
their  intelh'gences  —  has  tended  to  create  a  feeling  of  unrest  in 
teachers  when  called  upon  to  initiate,  to  construct  educational 
plans  outside  of  their  individual  classrooms.  Sometimes  they, 
like  principals,  superintendents,  and  board  members,  have 
feared  anarchy  as  a  resultant  of  the  individual  ideals  clashing 
in  the  children  upon  transference  from  one  teacher  to  another. 
That  is  exactly  what  does  result  under  conditions  in  which 
teachers  work  out  their  individual  preferences  under  regulation 
by  the  administrative  officials.  It  is  not  a  good-natured  patting 
on  the  back,  nor  words  of  commendation  given  by  a  superior 
being  to  an  inferior  being  that  will  make  for  a  social  harmony 
in  a  school  or  a  system  of  schools.  What  must  come,  and  is 
coming  rapidly  in  the  more  progressive  systems,  is  the  contri- 
bution of  the  successful  experience,  the  theories,  and  the  doubts 
of  teachers,  in  frank,  open  discussion  in  councils  organized  for 
freedom  of  thought  and  speech.  Why  talk  about  the  public 
school  as  an  indispensable  requisite  of  a  democracy  and  then 
conduct  it  as  a  prop  of  an  aristocracy  ? 

The  report  issued  during  the  last  year  of  her  super- 
intendency  shows  Mrs.  Young  at  her  best  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  constructive  thinker  in  education.  In 
her  discussion  of  the  course  of  study  she  throws  over 
the  hackneyed  arguments  for  enriching  the  work  of  the 
upper  grades  and  plunges  into  the  heart  of  the  needs 
of  children  in  the  democracy  as  it  exists  now,  over- 
shadowed by  the  industrialism  of  the  city.  The  difficulty 
with  the  over-age  boy  and  girl,  the  misfits  in  schools, 
all  lie  in  the  fact  that  we  are  sending  all  children  to 
school  and  therefore  need  a  diversified  curriculum.    In 


Making  Over  a  City  School  System         199 

discussing  the  failure  of  Latin  and  algebra  in  *'  the  lost 
effort  to  enrich  the  grammar-school  course,"  she  says: 

This  change  Is  not  so  much  a  yielding  to  the  preference  for 
modern  over  classical  study  as  it  is  the  recognition  of  the  differ- 
ence in  the  type  of  mind  which  today  is  seeking  an  education. 
With  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  education  which  America 
is  attempting — the  development  of  the  endowment  through 
initiation  and  individual  endeavor  —  the  difference  in  values  of 
subjects  exists  not  so  much  in  the  traditions  of  the  subject  as  In 
its  Integral  relations  to  all  that  is  involved  in  the  work  which 
this  type  or  that  type  of  mind  is  earning  on.  Vocational  work 
will  help  to  stimulate  and  strengthen  the  minds  of  children  In 
upper  grades. 

But  she  says  also: 

The  vocational  departments  In  high  schools,  or  any  portion  of 
them,  should  not  be  transferred  to  elementary  schools.  It  is  not 
for  limitation  of  children  to  commercial  or  trade  training  that 
I  plead;  It  Is  for  fit  preparation  of  our  children  before  they 
narrow,  as  in  time  they  all  must,  to  the  routine  demands  of 
trades  and  professions;  It  Is  for  such  an  awakening  of  young 
minds  to  the  laws  of  nature,  the  needs  and  possibilities  of 
humanity,  that  In  their  future  work  they  shall  keep  free  from 
the  limitations  of  bread-earning,  and  spirit  shall  never  fail  to 
catch  glimpses  of  life  and  its  meaning. 

In  recognition  of  the  work  she  was  doing  for  edu- 
cation, the  University  of  Illinois  honored  Mrs.  Young 
in  1 9 10  with  the  degree  of  LL.D. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

C-H-I-C-A-G-O  SPELLS  OPPORTUNITY 

"/^-H-I-C-A-G-0  spells  opportunity."  With  these 
^^  words  Mrs.  Young  closed  her  work  as  superin- 
tendent of  schools  in  Chicago.  The  sentiment  expressed 
in  these  words  was  not  a  mere  passing  emotion,  nor  a 
sudden  desire  for  trite  saying.  As  stated  in  an  editorial 
column  of  a  daily  paper — 

Her  final  words  of  farewell  are  colored  with  the  same  good 
sense,  courage,  and  hopefulness  that  have  marked  her  entire 
life-work.  Her  message  to  the  people  had  no  resentful  sting 
in  it  for  those  who  at  times  opposed  her  administration.  It 
contained  none  of  the  pessimistic  sentiment  which  so  often 
clouds  the  outlook  of  old  people  and  makes  them  believe  that 
the  golden  days  all  lie  behind  us.  It  had  no  tincture  in  it  of 
the  bitter  spirit  of  social  unrest  and  rebellion  which  obstinately 
refuses  to  see  good  and  magnifies  the  evil  aspects  of  the  times. 
Speaking  of  the  schools,  for  instance,  she  is  confident  that  the 
school  discipline  and  ideals  are  far  better  than  they  were  fifty 
years  ago ;  that  the  courses  of  study  are  now  much  better  adapted 
to  qualifying  children  for  actual  life  than  they  used  to  be;  and 
that  an  immense  advance  has  been  made  in  the  schools  in  taking 
care  of  the  physical  condition  of  the  children  —  a  field  wholly 
neglected  when  she  began  to  teach.  In  fine,  this  veteran  of  the 
public  schools  is  confident  that  Chicago's  school  system  is  steadily 
improving  in  practical  efficiency.  Her  notion  of  the  possibilities 
of  the  coming  generation  who  will  live  and  work  in  Chicago  is 
equally  encouraging.  She  says  "  C-h-i-c-a-g-o  spells  opportu- 
nity." It  is  a  fine  saying  —  worthy  of  becoming  a  municipal 
maxim.  And  it  is  a  true  saying.  Mrs.  Young's  own  career  is 
but  one  of  innumerable  examples  going  to  show  that  a  brave, 
patient,  and  rightly  aspiring  spirit  can  always  find  an  honorable 
career  in  Chicago. 

200 


C-h-i-c-a-g-0  Spells   Opportunity  201 

Not  only  has  Mrs.  Young  worked  in  Chicago  for 
more  than  half  a  century,  not  only  has  she  found  a 
home  within  the  limits  of  the  city,  but  her  professional 
career  and  her  very  personality  have  been  wrought 
upon  by  her  love  of  Chicago.  Time  has  turned  her 
head  gray  in  the  service  of  the  public  schools  of  this 
city.  Whatever  grade  of  work  in  the  schools  she  under- 
took has  given  her  a  new  chance  to  serve  the  city  she 
loved.  Her  faithfulness  to  the  schools  and  the  interests 
of  the  children  of  Chicago  was  not  born  of  a  mere 
sense  of  duty  held  in  some  exalted  mood,  but  based  on 
a  real  and  abiding  affection  for  the  city  itself  and  her 
desire  to  serve  its  interests.  When  she  suggested  to  the 
board  of  education  that  rather  than  have  salary  sched- 
ules cut  in  order  to  meet  a  deficit  in  finances  she  would 
ask  the  teachers  of  the  city  to  donate  two  weeks  of 
time  to  keep  the  schools  open,  she  had  no  doubt  that 
such  a  request  would  meet  with  the  teachers'  approval. 
And  her  basis  for  thinking  so  was  her  own  devotion  to 
the  welfare  of  the  schools  and  her  feeling  that  the 
teachers  she  had  been  working  with  for  a  lifetime 
would  respond  in  the  same  spirit. 

This  love  for  Chicago  has  not  been  a  matter  of 
emotional  effusion  and  gush.  It  was  based  on  an  exact 
knowledge  of  the  life  and  growth  of  the  city.  From 
the  very  first  of  her  teaching  to  the  close  of  her  super- 
intendency  she  had  kept  in  close  touch  with  every  social 
and  civic  movement  of  the  time.  When  she  first  took 
charge  of  a  school  as  principal,  as  already  pointed  out, 
she  spent  days  and  weeks  studying  the  people  and 
homes  and  industries  and  surroundings  of  her  district. 
Every  play  place  for  children  outside  of  the  home  was 


202  Ella  Flagg  Young 

known  to  her,  and  so  was  every  place  that  might  offer 
a  lure  for  the  youth  of  her  neighborhood.  Later  on 
she  kept  in  the  same  close  touch  with  the  movements 
of  populations  within  the  environs  of  the  city,  knew  the 
new  districts  added,  the  foreign  peoples,  and  the  needs 
of  each  for  accommodations  in  the  schools. 

No  one  appreciated  more  fully  than  she  did  the 
efforts  of  the  crude  overgrown  hulk  of  a  city  to  keep 
its  clothes  big  enough  to  cover  its  growing  body.  When 
it  was  charged  by  members  of  the  board  of  education 
that  the  demands  for  new  school  accommodations  by 
those  who  were  attending  only  part  time  could  be  satis- 
fied if  all  available  rooms  in  buildings  were  used,  Mrs. 
Young  pointed  out  that  the  empty  buildings  were  in 
districts  from  which  people  had  moved  because  they 
did  not  like  the  neighborhood,  and  it  would  therefore 
be  impossible  to  force  them  to  send  their  children  back 
to  those  places.  Encroachments  of  manufacturing  and 
business  were  driving  people  to  seek  new  quarters,  and 
the  schools  would  have  to  follow  the  people.  "Until 
the  city  dies  and  remains  at  a  standstill,  this  movement 
will  go  on,  and  we  shall  be  compelled  to  meet  it  by 
building  new  schools."  Even  though  the  city  was  grow- 
ing all  during  her  period  of  service  at  an  almost  incom- 
prehensible rate,  and  even  though  this  meant  uncouth- 
ness,  still  she  found  it  a  city  where  growth  was  in  the 
air  and  there  was  a  genuine  effort  at  all  times  to  com- 
pass the  physical  bounds  set  by  the  prairies  and  the  lake. 

This  visible  effort  at  growth  offered  to  Mrs.  Young 
a  great  problem,  a  game  of  the  mind  and  the  energies. 
She  liked  to  see  the  struggles  of  wave  after  wave  of 
population  for  a  stable  hold  on  life  in  the  city.  What 


C-h-i-c-a-g-0  Spells  Opportunity  203 

Miss  Jane  Addams  has  said  about  people  in  cities  not 
having  learned  to  live  together,  Mrs.  Young  followed 
day  by  day  for  fifty  years  and  strove  with  all  her  might 
to  help  them  to  learn.  It  was  a  struggle  of  social  and 
industrial  forces  to  adjust  themselves  to  the  limits  of 
life  in  a  new  city,  a  city  not  much  older  than  the  life 
of  a  generation,  and  this  struggle  typified  her  own 
growing  consciousness  of  the  schools'  share  in  bringing 
order  out  of  chaos.  Probably  no  one  element  in  the 
education  of  the  human  mind  has  a  greater  place  than 
that  of  space:  to  cover  a  large  area  with  the  mind 
means  a  real  broadening  of  the  mental  horizon.  The 
same  thing  is  true  of  a  growing  social  group  where  all 
is  flux  and  undetermined.  It  was  into  this  double  kind 
of  problem  that  life  threw  Mrs.  Young.  Her  mind 
was  ever  alert  for  its  solution.  How  could  the  schools 
bring  nearer  to  the  people  the  lessons  of  regularity  and 
the  message  of  service?  Night  after  night  she  came 
back  to  her  room  after  the  day  of  work  and  set  herself 
to  find  the  answer.  No  one  has  ever  devoted  himself 
with  greater  singleness  of  purpose  to  the  solution  of 
this  problem  of  wholesale  education  of  people  into  a 
new  kind  of  social  responsibility  —  a  problem  in  which 
foreign-born  children  were  no  more  conspicuous  ele- 
ments than  native  people  coming  to  Chicago  from  rural 
and  smaller  localities  and  struggling  to  adjust  them- 
selves to  city  life  where  standards  of  city  life  were  in 
the  making.  With  an  almost  feverish  energy  Mrs. 
Young  devoted  herself  to  the  conversion  of  all  such 
diverse  elements  into  citizens  and  neighbors,  not  only 
of  Chicago  but  of  America  at  large. 

Speed  and  energy  in  a  great  industrial  center  are 


204  Ella  Flagg  Young 

matters  of  marvel.  Probably  these  two  forces  in  Chi- 
cago had  more  influence  in  the  formation  of  the  ideals 
of  Mrs.  Young  than  any  other.  Unhampered  by  the 
traditions  of  an  older  and  more  formal  civilization, 
Chicago  pushed  to  the  limit  of  her  strength  processes 
of  competition  and  construction,  often  crude  and  in- 
effective, but  nevertheless  always  at  work.  Minds  are 
built  out  of  the  material  on  which  they  feed,  and  Chi- 
cago's growth  since  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War 
has  been  so  stupendous  that  anyone  keeping  in  active 
touch  with  it  must  have  felt  himself  expand  with  the 
decades  that  have  passed.  Inventions  and  transporta- 
tion have  meant  drains  on  the  power  of  human  minds. 
Calls  upon  an  institution  like  the  school  for  ever-new 
batches  of  human  ore  for  the  crucible  of  life  have 
searched  the  ingenuity  of  teachers  and  superintendents 
at  every  moment.  To  a  mindlike  that  of  Mrs.  Young 
such  an  atmosphere  could  act  only  as  a  spur  to  great 
exertions.  One  can  imagine  her  mind  tingling  with 
energy  as  she  looked  upon  the  accomplishments  of  the 
tremendous  tasks  of  Chicago,  the  tasks  of  building  a 
city  out  of  the  mud  banks  of  a  great  lake  and  putting 
it  in  touch  with  all  the  streams  of  commerce  passing 
from  one  ocean  to  another  every  moment.  In  her 
ability  to  keep  pace  with  such  a  demand  is  shown  the 
measure  of  Mrs.  Young's  power.  In  her  love  for  the 
task  she  set  herself  is  the  measure  of  her  singleness  of 
purpose  and  her  success  in  the  undertaking. 

That  life  close  at  hand  is  of  most  worth  to  each  one 
was  one  of  the  fundamental  tenets  of  Mrs.  Young's 
philosophy.  In  Chicago  she  found  all  that  men  and 
women  strive  for  the  world  over.    Her  writings  and 


C-h-i-c-a-g-0  Spells  Opportunity  205 

her  addresses  and  her  work  all  point  to  her  belief  In 
the  value  of  the  immediately  present  experience  as  the 
object  of  life.  She  never  sought  outside  her  work  for 
big,  formal  topics  on  which  to  write  or  speak,  but  found 
her  material  always  close  at  hand.  The  growth  of 
society,  not  in  general  terms,  but  in  its  human  and 
direct  sense,  she  found  in  her  own  school  and  city. 
Like  the  trained  scientific  worker,  her  mind  probed  into 
the  material  before  her,  but  continually  reached  out 
for  new  tools  and  for  every  available  idea  to  clear  up 
the  problems  she  was  trying  to  solve.  Because  of  her 
feeling  of  the  value  of  the  present,  she  always  had  time 
to  stop  to  consider  each  detail  carefully.  No  matter 
how  busy  she  might  be  over  administrative  affairs,  she 
kept  herself  open  to  every  applicant  for  attention  and 
listened  to  what  each  had  to  offer  on  the  business  at 
hand.  She  exemplified  in  practice  the  saying  of  Carlyle 
that  "here,  in  this  poor,  miserable,  hampered,  despi- 
cable actual,  wherein  thou  even  now  standest,  here  or 
nowhere  is  thy  ideal ;  work  it  out  therefrom  ;  and  work- 
ing, live,  be  free."  Often  in  conversation  her  face  lights 
suddenly  at  some  passing  remark  of  her  interviewer 
which  has  struck  out  some  suggestion  of  solution  to  a 
problem  over  which  she  has  been  brooding. 

Chicago  has  meant  so  much  to  Mrs.  Young,  there- 
fore, just  because  it  has  shown  the  way  of  life  in  its 
intricate  organization  and  demands.  It  has  been  so 
sufficient  that,  no  matter  how  tempting  the  opportunity 
offered  elsewhere,  she  has  not  been  attracted  from  her 
work.  The  attachment  was  more  than  merely  working 
among  one's  friends.  It  was  really  a  belief  in  one's 
own  efforts  rather  than  in  place  or  opportunity.   Doubt- 


2o6  Ella  Flagg  Young 

less  if  Mrs.  Young  had  been  reared  and  had  worked  in 
some  other  city  in  the  world  she  would  have  had  the 
same  regard  for  that  place  that  she  has  had  for  Chicago 
and  its  life.  But  it  is  difficult  to  separate  her  from  the 
surroundings  in  which  she  has  worked.  In  fact,  her 
love  for  Chicago  is  peculiarly  fitting  to  her  own  char- 
acter and  temperament.  Wherever  she  has  gone  she 
has  carried  the  needs  and  the  desires  and  shortcomings 
of  this  big  living  embodiment  of  human  strivings  with 
her.  In  Europe  she  saw  new  movements  in  terms  of 
the  measuring-rod  of  Chicago  practices  and  ideas.  It 
was  to  bring  back  impetus  for  her  own  schools  that  she 
took  trips.  In  other  cities  she  found  improvements  for 
Chicago  —  in  Tuskegee  Institute  she  found  posture  and 
carriage  of  students  an  antidote  for  slovenly  habits  of 
high-school  pupils  of  Chicago.  Her  life  was  centered 
on  bringing  back  to  her  home  the  best  available  every- 
where. The  report  of  her  last  trip  to  Europe  is  directly 
bent  on  solving  one  of  the  hard  problems  of  vocational 
education  as  practiced  in  the  schools  of  Chicago.  Her 
work  in  the  University  of  Chicago  never  removed  her 
from  an  active  participation  in  bettering  the  teaching 
force  and  the  school  practice  of  the  city. 

During  the  past  half-century,  as  already  pointed  out 
in  this  work,  there  have  been  vast  changes  in  operation, 
transforming  the  forms  of  social  forces  in  Chicago  that 
this  western  civilization  alone  could  furnish.  The 
progress  of  these  changes  has  made  life  for  Mrs.  Young 
the  most  fascinating  game.  Individualism  has  run  riot 
in  many  forms  in  this  period.  Industrialism  has  raced 
after  immediate  and  material  rewards.  Its  eagerness 
for  results  has  cheapened  human  life  and  at  times 


C-h-i-c-a-g-0  Spells  Opportunity  207 

placed  property  above  men.  Administration  of  human 
interests  has  largely  been  in  terms  of  economic  stand- 
ards, and  each  one  has  sought  to  place  his  own  value 
at  the  highest  point  in  the  market  of  life.  In  contrast 
to  this  western  individualism  of  Chicago  the  older 
world  of  the  East  has  ordered  the  life  of  each  one 
and  rated  him  in  terms  of  traditional  standards.  It  has 
reduced  men  and  women  to  items  in  the  business  of  the 
state.  Individuals  have  existed  only  to  further  the  ends 
set  by  the  overlords  of  society. 

Between  these  two  ideals  of  society,  the  one  of  rank 
individualism  and  the  other  of  complete  subjection  of 
each  to  the  demands  of  a  superior,  the  past  half-century 
has  witnessed  a  third  form  of  social  organization  in- 
compatible with  both.  Mrs.  Young  has  followed  with 
the  keenest  study  this  conflict  of  social  forces  in  her 
immediate  community,  and  has  perceived  for  many 
years  the  growing  germ  of  real  social  control,  a  control 
based  not  on  dictation  of  an  outside  governing  class 
nor  on  self-seeking  individualism,  but  a  control  growing 
out  of  the  organization  of  the  people  themselves.  In 
all  her  work  in  Chicago  she  has  admired  the  push  and 
initiative  of  the  people.  This  initiative  she  has  sought 
to  cultivate  in  the  young.  Her  belief  that  Chicago 
offered  opportunity  to  the  young  was  her  faith  in  its 
encouragement  of  initiative  in  each  one.  But  she  did 
not  stop  with  the  encouragement  of  initiative.  She  has 
persistently  insisted  that  children  must  be  taught  their 
responsibility  to  society.  Each  one  must  be  made  to 
feel  that  he  owes  to  his  city  and  community  the  best  he 
has  in  him.  Instead  of  merely  seeking  his  own  ends, 
he  must  be  made  to  feel  that  there  are  forces  bigger 


2o8  Ella  Flagg  Young 

than  himself  to  which  he  owes  allegiance.  Chicago  to 
Mrs.  Young  meant  the  balance  between  these  two 
forces  of  initiative  and  responsibility  in  human  affairs. 

Even  the  politics  and  politicians  of  Chicago  occupied 
a  fascinating  position  in  the  mind  of  Mrs.  Young.  In 
her  long  experience  with  "  influences "  in  school  and 
social  affairs  she  came  to  regard  the  play  of  these  forces 
as  a  game.  Moreover,  she  looked  upon  the  political 
situation  as  a  part  of  the  education  of  men  and  women 
in  self-control  and  self-government.  The  necessity  for 
misunderstandings  and  for  self-seeking  formed  a  part 
of  this  scheme  of  things.  Only  when  the  vital  inter- 
ests of  children  were  at  stake  did  she  rebel  at  the 
unwarranted  assumption  of  power  of  some  faction  or 
person.  Her  interest  was  always  a  public  one,  and 
never  for  private  aggrandizement,  and  she  found  it 
hard  to  reconcile  herself  to  the  predatory  spirit  in 
others.  During  the  last  two  years  of  her  superintend- 
ency,  when  she  found  political  interests  so  strongly 
intrenched  that  every  move  she  made  for  the  welfare 
of  the  public  school  was  blocked,  her  faith  in  our 
system  of  government  was  sorely  tried  but  never 
broken.  Only  her  long  experience  and  her  ultimate 
faith  in  the  triumph  of  self-government  held  her  to  the 
end.  The  tragedy  of  her  immolation  and  of  her  final 
withdrawal  from  public  life  will  never  be  known,  but, 
in  spite  of  all  her  rebuffs  at  the  hands  of  self-seeking 
forces,  her  love  for  the  welfare  of  Chicago  and  its 
children  kept  her  sane  and  single-minded  throughout 
the  struggle. 

Mrs.  Young  never  became  lost  in  the  maze  of  mate- 
rial growth  and  accomplishment,  vast  as  such  progress 


C-h-i-c-a-g-0  Spells  Opportunity  209 

has  been.  It  was  not  to  external  forces,  nor  size,  nor 
wealth  that  she  gave  her  best  energies  and  allegiance. 
Back  of  her  love  for  Chicago  lies  her  love  for  the 
human  spirits  of  little  children  and  the  men  and  women 
who  so  unreservedly  gave  themselves  to  helping  these 
children.  The  countless  generations  of  young  people 
leaving  the  schools  to  enter  the  work  of  life  year  by 
year  stood  for  positive  individuals  to  her,  and  she  pro- 
jected into  them  her  own  aspirations  to  conquer  ignor- 
ance and  immorality.  That  she  remembered  the  names 
of  her  former  students  for  many  years  afterwards  was 
not  an  accident  of  memory,  but  a  part  of  her  real 
interest  in  keeping  In  touch  with  the  work  and  lives  of 
those  she  had  taken  some  part  in  forming.  Her  love 
for  Chicago  thus  had  a  large  share  of  the  personal 
element  in  it  at  all  times.  It  was  not  the  houses  and 
streets  and  beauty  of  outlook  that  held  her  to  this  city, 
but  the  feeling  that  kindred  spirits  were  striving,  and 
it  was  her  business  to  help  them  in  their  struggles.  In 
her  love  for  Chicago  there  was  always  this  yearning 
of  the  mother-heart.  She  strove  to  make  the  way  plain 
for  the  children  of  Chicago.  Human  souls  constituted 
the  Chicago  that  Mrs.  Young  loved,  and  all  her  work 
in  education  was  in  answer  to  her  love  for  them. 

This  spirit  of  love  for  the  young  of  Chicago  led  her 
to  assume  official  positions  in  the  schools.  Office- 
holding  was  to  her  never  an  end  in  itself  —  merely 
holding  an  attractive  job  and  drawing  a  good  salary  — 
but  was  for  what  she  could  do  for  Chicago  In  that 
position.  In  her  readiness  for  the  place  to  which  she 
was  appointed,  already  pointed  out,  her  preparation  was 
for  the  work  she  saw  was  needed  to  be  done  rather 


210  Ella  Flagg  Young 

than  for  the  position  of  power.  Her  custom  of  leaving 
a  position  that  had  become  restrictive  was  based  on  this 
principle  of  leaving  the  place  that  cut  off  avenues  of 
service  to  the  city.  Opportunity  to  serve  Chicago  was 
never  separated  from  a  deep  sense  of  responsibility  for 
the  welfare  of  its  people. 

Before  Mrs.  Young  gave  up  her  position  as  superin- 
tendent of  schools  she  presented  her  worldly  goods  to 
the  public.  In  comparison  with  the  service  of  a  life- 
time which  she  has  given,  this  act  seems  paltry.  But 
it  is  markedly  characteristic  of  her  thoughts  for  Chi- 
cago that  she  should  turn  her  bcoks  on  education  and 
philosophy  over  to  the  public  library,  there  to  be  used 
by  citizens  and  students.  Her  household  goods  she  sent 
to  the  Mary  Thompson  Hospital.  The  intrinsic  worth 
of  the  gift  lies  in  the  giving  of  her  own  personal  and 
cherished  goods,  gathered  during  many  years  as  treas- 
ures, to  the  public.  That  she  should  select  public  insti- 
tutions to  which  to  give  her  personal  possessions  is 
evidence  that  her  interests  in  the  welfare  of  Chicago 
were  uppermost  in  her  mind. 

Her  closing  words  to  the  newspapers  when  she  left 
the  superintendency  sum  up  Mrs.  Young's  love  for  the 
children  of  Chicago  and  her  inspiration  in  her  years  of 
service.  They  might  well  apply  to  any  city  and  any  age : 

I  believe  that  every  child  should  be  happy  in  school.  So  we 
have  tried  to  substitute  recreation  for  drill.  We  have  tried  to 
correct  bad  physical  conditions.  We  have  tried  to  abolish  severe 
evening  work.  We  have  tried  to  recognize  types  of  mind  as  a 
mother  does  among  her  own  children.  We  were  losing  the 
majority  of  children  at  the  fifth  grade.  By  letting  them  do 
things  with  their  hands  we  have  saved  many  of  them.  In  order 
that  teachers  may  delight  in  awakening  the  spirits  of  children, 


C'h-i-c-a-g-0  Spells  Opportunity  211 

they  must  themselves  be  awake.  We  have  tried  to  free  the 
teachers.  Some  day  the  system  will  be  such  that  the  child  and 
teacher  will  go  to  school  with  ecstatic  joy.  At  home  in  the 
evening  the  child  will  talk  about  the  things  done  during  the  day 
and  will  talk  with  pride.  I  want  to  make  the  schools  the  great 
instrument  of  democracy. 


I 


CHAPTER  XIV 

ELLA    FLAGG  YOUNG 

N  an  editorial  on  October  23,   19 15,  the  Chicago 
Herald  said: 


"  Children  and  dogs  know  their  friends,"  runs  an  old  and 
true  saying.  The  children  of  Chicago,  so  far  as  it  has  been  their 
good  fortune  to  come  into  any  sort  of  personal  contact  with  her, 
know  they  are  losing  a  friend  indeed  from  among  the  ruling 
powers  of  their  daily  lives,  because  after  December  8  Mrs.  Ella 
Flagg  Young  will  be  no  longer  head  of  the  public  schools. 

About  a  year  ago  a  certain  small  boy  came  home  with 
shining  eyes  to  tell  about  the  lady  whose  acquaintance  he  had 
made  while  waiting  at  a  suburban  station  for  a  train.  He  is 
a  small  boy,  by  no  means  humble  of  mind  and  not  easily  im- 
pressed with  anybody's  greatness.  But  that  five-minute  inter- 
view enrolled  him  as  Mrs.  Young's  devoted  admirer. 

The  incident  excited  curiosity  and  prompted  enquiry.  The 
judgment  was  found  to  be  uniform.  While  it  isn't  easy  to 
break  through  the  reticence  of  childhood,  this  was  found  a 
subject  on  which  expression  was  prompt  and  decided.  From 
scores  of  children  who  had  happened  to  meet  her  —  and  she 
seemed  never  to  overlook  a  child  anywhere  near  —  came  the 
verdict:   "She's  all  right!" 

From  the  day,  over  half  a  century  before,  when  her 
mother  had  advised  her  against  entering  upon  teaching 
as  a  profession,  to  the  time  when  children  instinctively 
knew  her  for  their  friend,  there  had  been  a  marvelous 
transformation  in  character.  The  steps  by  which  Mrs. 
Young  grew  from  a  retiring  girl  to  a  big-souled  woman 
have  already  been  pointed  out.  Likewise,  the  growth 
from  the  obscure  teacher  to  the  educator  with  national 
and  international  fame  has  been  set  out  stage  by  stage. 
But  the  qualities  that  have  given  her  fame  in  her  line 

212 


Ella  Flagg   Young  213' 

of  work,  and  for  which  she  is  recognized  among  her 
countrymen,  should  be  known. 

How  has  she  attained  eminence  among  people? 
Why  is  she  pointed  out  among  the  crowd  and  kept  in 
the  public  eye?  Certainly  not  by  the  mode  adopted 
by  the  headline-seeker  after  notoriety,  for  there  is 
nothing  more  distasteful  to  her  than  to  be  conspicuous, 
and  she  craves  to  be  let  alone  with  her  work.  Many 
guesses  as  to  the  secret  of  power  of  great  men  and 
women  leave  us  still  in  the  dark.  Intellectual  suprem- 
acy, social  standing,  political  acumen,  wealth,  heritage, 
democracy  in  spirit  and  practice,  all  have  been  offered 
to  explain  the  preeminence  of  people  under  various 
circumstances.  In  the  case  of  Mrs.  Young  one  might 
apply  several  of  these  descriptive  terms  with  certainty 
to  the  explanation  of  her  character.  Her  intellectual 
power  is  unquestioned,  her  foresight  in  administration 
has  been  recognized  as  of  high  order,  her  courage  and 
self-possession,  her  outspoken  manner  of  expressing 
her  convictions,  her  judgment  in  affairs,  all  belong  in 
the  first  rank. 

Whatever  the  secret  of  Mrs.  Young's  greatness  may 
be,  the  fact  that  she  is  known  through  her  efforts  in 
education  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  country  gives 
evidence  of  her  power.  A  summary  of  her  activities 
as  they  are  known  will  show  a  wonderful  versatility  of 
character  and  endeavor.  As  teacher,  as  administrator, 
as  writer,  student,  club-woman  and  citizen,  democrat  — 
in  all  these  capacities  she  has  made  herself  felt  by  the 
age  in  which  she  has  lived.  She  has  had  interests 
enough  to  have  earned  the  title  of  "educational 
statesman." 


214  -E^^^  Flagg  Young 

As  teacher  Mrs.  Young  stands  out  conspicuously  In 
the  annals  of  American  education.  She  loves  teaching. 
Men  and  women  hold  her  In  cherished  memory  for 
the  thrill  of  strength  and  ambition  she  stirred  within 
them.  She  knows  how  to  bring  the  latent  power  to 
effective  realization  in  whatever  subject  she  undertakes, 
whether  with  young  or  older  people.  To  her  students, 
it  always  appears  that  they  themselves  are  developing 
the  subject,  so  subtle  Is  her  power  to  draw  forth  their 
thoughts  and  feelings.  No  one  could  miss  the  tonic 
effects  of  her  confidence.  She  speaks  to  the  spirit  and 
the  response  Is  complete.  In  her  later  years  her  zeal 
for  teaching  has  Increased  rather  than  diminished,  as 
Is  so  often  the  case,  and  she  lamented  that  duties  of 
administration  kept  her  from  the  direct  work  of  the 
classroom.  Her  judgment  of  the  school  Is  always  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  health  and  happiness  and 
response  of  the  pupils.  No  matter  what  the  grade  of 
work,  kindergarten  or  university,  no  matter  what  the 
circumstances  attending  the  work,  her  eye  Is  always 
clear  to  see  the  student's  attitude  toward  life  and  Its 
problems.  The  marvel  expressed  at  her  power  to  size 
up  a  schoolroom  vanishes  when  one  applies  this  simple 
test  of  the  freedom  and  happiness  of  children  to  the 
teaching. 

Next  to  that  of  teacher,  Mrs.  Young  Is  known  best 
to  the  world  as  an  administrator.  Sufficient  has  been 
said  to  make  more  than  a  reference  to  her  position  In 
this  respect  unnecessary.  One  class  of  administrators 
sees  the  big  Issues  and  principles,  another  holds  the 
minutlas  of  details.  Rare  is  the  combination  In  one 
person  of  both  of  these  powers  In  great  degree.    Mrs, 


I'hc.tn-riii'li  by  .larvis  Weed 


KLLA  FLAGG  YOUXG 

When    Snpci  iiitentlcnt   of   Sclioc 


Ella  Flagg   Young  215 

Young  was  strong  in  both  respects.  She  never  lost  the 
large  perspective  of  public  education  in  American  cities, 
and  at  the  same  time  she  kept  facts  and  figures  at  her 
finger-tips  in  the  most  intricate  matters.  In  the  finances 
of  the  Chicago  schools  she  knew  where  every  expendi- 
ture within  her  department  went.  Her  handling  of 
people  was  also  masterful.  Once  she  had  assigned  a 
task  to  some  person,  he  was  held  responsible  for  that 
task.  Her  failures  may  be  accredited  to  an  over- 
estimation  of  the  reliability  of  an  agent  whom  she  had 
selected,  but  the  failure  was  always  on  the  side  of  too 
great  rather  than  too  little  trust.  In  all  her  work  as 
an  administrator  she  combined  the  power  of  a  seer  with 
the  adroitness  of  a  politician.  That  she,  a  woman,  was 
allowed  by  the  politicians  of  Chicago  to  hold  a  position 
of  such  value  as  that  of  superintendent  for  six  years 
is  the  most  searching  test  that  can  be  applied  to  her 
ability  to  deal  with  difficult  situations.  She  found  it 
necessary  many  times  to  take  "half  a  loaf"  in  improv- 
ing the  schools,  but  she  never  gave  up  a  goal  because 
it  happened  temporarily  to  be  submerged  by  immediate 
difficulties.  Her  ideal  of  her  office  as  an  administrator 
led  to  a  complete  sacrifice  of  personal  affairs  and  of 
all  things  except  her  ideals  of  what  the  office  meant  to 
the  public  good.  Those  she  stuck  to  under  all  circum- 
stances, to  the  point  of  giving  up  the  job  rather  than 
compromise.  In  energy,  in  honesty,  in  fearlessness,  in 
large-mindedness  and  public-spiritedness,  Mrs.  Young 
stands  in  the  front  ranks  of  great  public  servants  of  the 
present  generation. 

Mrs.   Young  is  better  known   for  her  work  as  a 
teacher  and  administrator  than  as  a  writer.    Since  she 


2i6  Ella  Flagg  Young 

has  never  been  a  person  of  many  words,  her  production 
is  not  voluminous,  and  consists  of  essays  and  public 
addresses  on  educational  subjects.  In  these  essays  and 
addresses  she  is  always  the  student,  combining  pains- 
taking labor,  profound  and  keen  insight,  and  broad, 
critical  reading.  It  will  be  found  on  examination  of 
her  work  that  she  has  considered  in  large  measure  the 
most  vital  of  the  questions  which  have  arisen  in  the 
course  of  recent  educational  history — problems  of 
school,  theory  and  practice,  management,  of  child-  and 
teacher-welfare.  Very  little  of  what  Mrs.  Young  has 
written  has  been  put  into  an  available  form  for  general 
readers.  Most  of  her  addresses  and  contributions  are 
found  only  in  the  proceedings  of  various  associations 
or  in  official  reports,  and  the  collection  of  her  papers 
into  a  single  volume  would  be  a  distinct  service  to  the 
progress  of  educational  theory  and  practice. 

Mrs.  Young's  style  is  that  of  the  scientist.  Because 
her  grasp  of  her  subject  is  detailed  and  definite,  she 
speaks  in  a  more  or  less  technical  way.  She  says  all 
she  has  to  tell  in  as  few  words  as  possible.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  her  writings 
are  formal  or  abstract  because  they  are  dealing  with 
technical,  scientific  material.  There  are  no  bare  general- 
izations nor  formal  declarations  in  her  language.  She 
never  "preaches."  To  her  the  subject  she  deals  with 
is  as  objective  and  plain  as  the  experiment  is  to  the 
scientist,  and  her  descriptions  of  the  material  have  all 
the  definiteness  and  simplicity  of  scientific  discussions. 

When  she  speaks  or  writes  Mrs.  Young  is  not  doing 
so  to  take  up  time,  to  conceal  her  identity,  or  to  hide 
her  position  on  matters  at  issue.    She  expresses  always 


Ella  Flagg  Young  217 

definite  and  deep  convictions,  though  she  is  never  par- 
tisan or  narrowly  personal  in  what  she  says.  Her 
thinking  is  clear  and  to  the  point,  and  her  language 
says  exactly  what  she  thinks.  As  one  who  has  known 
her  for  many  years  says,  "  Mrs.  Young  has  a  very 
clear,  logical  mind  and  a  fine  command  of  language. 
The  logical  mind  is  the  more  Important,  for  one  can 
have  a  good  command  of  language  without  the  clear 
mental  action,  and  give  only  words;  one  can  talk,  and 
talk  pleasantly,  but  give  one's  hearers  nothing  to  carry 
away."  People  always  carry  away  something  after 
having  listened  to  Mrs.  Young  or  having  read  one  of 
her  essays.  One  difficulty,  however,  often  presents 
itself  to  the  average  hearer  or  reader  In  getting  her 
meaning.  Her  method  of  stating  what  she  has  to  say 
is  so  simple  and  direct  that  she  Is  likely  to  impress  one 
with  the  feeling  that  she  is  dealing  with  mere  common- 
place matters,  and  even  careful  readers  may  pass  over 
most  significant  material  without  noting  Its  full  value. 
There  Is  nothing  of  the  spectacular  or  sensational  and 
dramatic,  and  people  who  expect  this  sort  of  thing  are 
usually  disappointed  in  reading  her  essays  or  addresses. 
Four  stages  in  the  history  of  Mrs.  Young's  writings 
are  well  marked.  The  first  covers  the  time  before  she 
entered  the  University  of  Chicago  as  a  teacher,  and 
includes  several  published  addresses.  The  second 
covers  the  years  spent  in  the  faculty  of  the  University, 
during  which  she  wrote  several  essays  and  edited  one 
of  the  magazines  of  the  school.  The  third  extends 
over  her  connection  with  the  Chicago  Normal  School, 
where  she  established  and  edited  the  Educational  Bi- 
Monthly.     Finally,  since  becoming  superintendent  of 


2l8  Ella  Flag g  Young 

schools  she  has  written  annual  and  special  reports  and 
delivered  frequent  addresses.  Each  of  these  is  a  dis- 
tinctive period  in  her  literary  work. 

As  a  club-woman  and  advocate  of  the  woman  move- 
ment Mrs.  Young  is  well  known  in  Chicago  and 
throughout  the  country.  Her  idea  of  equal  rights  for 
men  and  women  has  been  clear  and  unmistakable  for 
many  years,  though  she  has  never  been  a  "preacher" 
of  the  cause.  What  she  has  undertaken  to  do  was  to 
show  the  power  of  women  in  positions  of  public  respon- 
sibility, work  that  she  considered  more  important  than 
talking  in  behalf  of  "votes  for  women."  She  said,  in 
commenting  on  her  position  in  the  suffrage  movement, 
"  I  have  been  too  busy  to  talk  about  the  equality  of 
men  and  women,  but  what  I  have  done  ought  to  help 
secure  for  women  recognition  in  civic  and  political 
affairs."  Wherever  given  opportunity  to  vote  on  any 
public  question  she  has  exercised  her  prerogative.  As 
a  member  of  an  active  and  powerful  woman's  club  she 
has  for  years  participated  in  movements  for  the  im- 
provement of  civic  affairs.  Her  position  in  this  club 
and  her  work  in  the  schools  of  Chicago  and  of  Illinois 
have  both  been  factors  in  the  argument  for  suffrage. 
The  fact  that  women  were  already  doing  some  of  the 
most  responsible  of  public  work  was  an  incontestable 
argument  in  behalf  of  the  plea  for  votes.  Mrs.  Young 
had  been  pointed  out  as  the  highest-salaried  woman  in 
public  affairs  in  the  state  of  Illinois  some  years  before 
she  became  superintendent  of  schools,  and  in  the  latter 
position  she  still  held  that  place.  In  all  her  work  for 
votes,  as  well  as  for  education,  she  felt  herself  merely 
a  representative  of  the  great  cause  of  public  welfare. 


Ella  Flagg   Young  219 

She  merged  herself  Into  the  public  movements  of  which 
she  was  a  part,  and  never  once  undertook,  through 
writing  or  through  speaking  In  public,  to  exalt  herself 
before  the  eyes  of  the  country.  What  she  did  was 
always  directed  toward  some  definite  movement  and 
was  not  some  side  Issue  to  bolster  up  her  own  Interests 
or  bring  herself  Into  prominence. 

It  was  thus  as  a  citizen  of  the  commonwealth  that 
Mrs.  Young  regarded  her  own  work  and  her  own 
place  In  society.  When  the  attack  of  the  board  of  edu- 
cation was  made  on  the  teachers'  organizations,  she 
fought  It  on  the  ground  that  teachers  were  citizens  of 
the  community  and  no  one  had  the  right  to  Infringe 
upon  their  standing  as  such.  She  jealously  guarded  her 
own  freedom  In  matters  of  public  opinion  and  public 
activity.  That  she  never  became  merely  an  advocate 
for  votes  for  women  was  explained  by  the  fact  that  she 
saw  a  wider  field  of  cooperation  In  public  affairs  where 
men  and  women  should  be  equal  In  the  sense  that  sex 
should  not  serve  as  a  bar  against  any  kind  of  public 
work  for  which  one  Is  fitted.  Being  a  citizen  meant 
neither  one  nor  the  other  sex,  but  a  human  being  with 
the  right  to  help  In  the  direction  of  affairs  of  Interest  to 
all.  By  years  of  patient  endeavor  she  built  up  an  Im- 
pregnable fortress  for  loyal  citizenship  in  Illinois.  Not 
only,  therefore,  can  she  be  appropriately  called  "  an 
educational  statesman,"  but  she  deserves  the  title  of 
leading  citizen. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  Mrs.  Young  is, 
above  all,  a  democrat.  Without  a  clear  understanding 
of  this  democratic  character  one  Is  not  in  a  position  to 
understand  her  power  as  a  leader.     Democracy,  of 


220  Ella  Flagg  Young 

course,  is  a  word  to  be  conjured  with.  It  undoubtedly 
involves  freedom  to  act.  But,  to  Mrs.  Young,  freedom 
to  act  is  only  an  external  manifestation  of  freedom  of 
intellect  and  spirit.  That  the  democratic  spirit  of  Chi- 
cago was  the  principal  element  in  her  love  for  the  city 
has  already  been  shown.  Here  she  found  it  possible 
to  belong  to  a  society  that  did  not  place  an  iron  band 
about  her  head.  Each  one  is  given  his  chance  to  feel 
his  own  way  to  reality  and  stand  on  a  foundation  of  his 
own  building.  He  is  an  essential  part  of  the  social 
whole  and  finds  every  avenue  open  to  him  to  do  his 
share  of  the  work  needed,  yet  he  is  free  to  determine 
his  share.  It  was  in  this  freedom  that  Mrs.  Young 
placed  her  deepest  faith.  Education  meant  to  her  just 
such  a  plan  for  giving  freedom  to  the  minds  of  children 
that  they  might  go  forth  fully  aware  of  their  power  of 
^  mind  and  responsibility  in  life.  From  democracy  as 
she  found  it  in  Chicago  she  projected  a  democracy  of 
the  spirit.  To  her  this  spirit  was  never  a  tame  thing, 
but  was  full  of  fight  and  energy.  She,  herself,  was  a 
lover  of  fighting,  providing  the  fighting  was  the  "  give 
and  take  "  that  develops  the  spirit.  People  have  won- 
dered that  she  was  not  embittered  by  the  opposition  she 
met  in  the  working  out  of  the  plans  she  had  cherished 
for  years.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  felt  that  democratic 
principles  demand  such  opposition  and  foster  this  possi- 
bility for  each  to  carry  his  ideas  to  the  bar  of  public 
necessity  and  there  fight  for  the  issues  he  considers 
most  essential  to  the  well-being  of  the  whole.  Her 
philosophy  of  life,  therefore,  kept  her  sane  in  the  face 
of  most  vicious  attacks  on  her  personal  as  well  as 
professional  integrity. 


Ella  Flagg   Young  221 

Back  of  all  this  wonderful  wealth  of  objective  accom- 
n^Ishments  as  teacher,  administrator,  writer,  citizen, 
id  as  exponent  of  democracy,  lies  the  fountain  of 
Mrs.  Young's  strength  in  her  devotion  to  study.  She 
is  always  the  student.  Her  mind  is  ever  busy  with 
some  immediate  or  remote  question.  She  has  kept  in 
touch  with  the  latest  books  and  ideas  on  literature  and 
science.  She  began  as  a  young  woman  to  read  history 
as  a  part  of  her  weekly  program,  and  that  habit  has 
persisted.  When  the  recent  Balkan  difficulties  arose, 
she  said  one  day  to  a  friend,  "  If  you  want  to  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  this  trouble,  read  the  new  book 
of  Professor  Bury."  At  the  time  of  this  utterance  she 
was  in  the  midst  of  most  trying  difficulties  in  the  admin- 
istration of  schools.  She  was  able  through  her  marked 
power  of  concentration  to  see  at  a  glance  the  mean- 
ing of  the  written  page.  Her  power  to  carry  over  for 
a  period  some  conversation  or  some  piece  of  thought 
was  the  acquisition  of  years  of  practice  in  this  direction. 
Months  after  a  conversation  or  a  request  for  informa- 
tion, she  would  come  back  at  one  with,  "  I  have  not 
forgotten  your  question.  It  seems  to  me,"  and  then 
would  follow  an  exposition  that  showed  that  she  had 
brooded  over  the  case  during  the  interval.  Besides 
being  a  student  of  books  and  ideas,  she  was  a  student 
of  human  nature.  Her  interpretation  of  people  was 
undoubtedly  a  feminine  intuition,  but  was  also  the 
result  of  most  careful  study  and  analysis  of  individuals. 
Her  continued  insistence  upon  "types  of  mind"  was 
not  an  academic  consideration,  but  was  the  result  of 
watching  individuals  and  their  mode  of  reacting.  Above 
all,  Mrs.  Young  was  a  student  of  society.    She  applied 


222  Ella  Flagg  Young 

all  her  powers  of  mind  to  understanding  the  group 
with  which  she  had  to  deal.  In  her  classroom  she  was 
constantly  watching  group-psychology,  the  effects  of 
people  on  each  other,  and  the  values  set  by  the  class 
upon  affairs. 

Doubtless  the  effect  on  persons,  be  they  individuals 
or  groups,  measures  in  large  degree  the  worth  of  a 
man  or  woman.  Mrs.  Young  has  succeeded  in  impress- 
ing people  with  her  strength  and  has  won  respect  for 
her  power.  In  her  long  career  she  has  made  enemies. 
To  many  she  has  seemed  hard  and  unsympathetic,  a 
person  whose  mind  was  made  up  and  determined  at  any 
cost.  Often  such  an  estimate  has  been  made  through 
a  misunderstanding  of  her  motives  or  her  manner; 
often,  of  course,  as  the  result  of  opposition  to  her 
policies;  often  as  an  echo  from  past  days  when  this 
feeling  was  more  common  than  in  recent  times. 

For  it  is  true  that  time  has  softened  Mrs.  Young 
and  has  made  her  a  more  highly  social  person.  There 
was  a  time  when  she  was  diffident  about  attempting  to 
speak  or  act  openly  to  others  for  whom  she  might  feel 
the  keenest  sympathy,  merely  because  she  found  it  hard 
to  show  her  feelings.  The  change  observable  in  her 
bearing  is  typical  in  her  dress.  All  descriptions  of  her 
as  a  young  woman  emphasize  the  severity  of  her  dress. 
No  doubt  styles  affected  by  women  have  softened;  no 
doubt  a  girl  desiring  to  succeed  then  in  a  business 
career  preferred  a  severer  style.  But  neither  of  these 
considerations  is  sufficient  to  explain  the  metamorphosis 
that  has  taken  place.  Diffidence  of  manner  has  given 
way  to  ease  and  cordiality,  and  the  severe  business 
woman  is  now  the  well-dressed  woman  of  the  world. 


Ella  Flagg   Young  ii'T, 

This  estimate  by  the  world,  based  on  accomplish- 
ments as  teacher,  administrator,  and  woman  of  affairs, 
is  incomplete  without  the  view  Mrs.  Young  holds  of 
herself  and  her  career.  Were  one  to  ask  her  the  secret 
of  what  she  has  done,  one  gets  the  wholly  unexpected 
answer  that  her  success  is  due  to  the  help  of  others. 
So  keen  is  her  sense  of  obligation  that  it  is  akin  to 
gratitude  to  others  and  to  Chicago  for  the  opportu- 
nities she  has  had.  Deepest  of  all,  perhaps,  lies  her 
regard  for  the  help  of  her  mother,  a  feeling  almost  of 
reverence.  The  men  and  women  who  in  the  course  of 
her  life  have  been  closest  to  her  and  have  helped  her 
are  never  forgotten,  and  to  them  she  gives  more  credit 
than  the  ordinary  person  does.  Even  politicians  of 
Chicago,  she  feels,  have  put  her  under  obligation  for 
her  chance  to  serve  the  city  and  accomplish  her  work. 
To  the  women  of  the  city  and  the  country  she  feels  a 
deep  debt  of  gratitude.  More  than  once  she  has  uttered 
the  words,  "  I'd  like  to  do  for  the  women  of  Chicago 
what  they  have  done  for  me  in  the  past  in  giving  me 
my  chance."  From  step  to  step  in  the  history  of  her 
work  in  various  walks  of  life  Mrs.  Young  has  been 
able  to  inspire  friendship,  and  to  such  friends  she  has 
turned  in  later  years  as  the  source  of  her  power. 
Nothing  in  her  lies  deeper  than  the  sense  of  loyalty 
which  she  shows  to  such  persons. 

In  her  private  life  Mrs.  Young  has  had  time,  aside 
from  her  busy  professional  activities,  to  surround  her- 
self with  intimate  friends  who  have  stood  bv  her  loyally 
in  all  of  her  trials.  To  many  people  she  has  given  the 
impression  of  being  masculine.  Her  strength  of  mind 
and  her  tremendous  executive  capacity  and  indomitable 


224  Ella  Flagg  Young 

courage  have  appeared  to  the  observer  more  than 
feminine  qualities.  To  her  friends,  however,  she  has 
always  stood  for  the  distinctively  feminine.  There  is 
almost  a  pathetic  note  of  dependence  upon  others  shown 
in  some  of  her  characteristic  moods.  She  is,  in  fact, 
moody  at  times,  and  extremely  sensitive  about  her  own 
private  interests.  All  her  life  she  has  devoted  every 
ounce  of  her  strength  to  her  work.  It  is  embarrassing 
to  her,  therefore,  to  have  people  turn  back  to  ask 
about  her  personally.  She  eludes  her  interviewer  and 
turns  his  attention  to  the  things  she  is  interested  in. 

Her  absorption  in  her  work  has  on  many  occasions 
led  her  to  seem  hard,  and  has  alienated  people  from 
her,  when,  as  matter  of  fact,  she  has  meant  nothing 
more  than  a  desire  to  be  let  alone  or  to  have  others 
see  the  problems  as  she  sees  them.  This  retiring  and 
sensitive  spirit  in  matters  where  her  private  life  is  con- 
cerned is  one  of  her  striking  characteristics.  When  her 
friends,  during  the  last  days  of  her  superintendency, 
dined  her  and  praised  her  for  what  she  had  done,  she 
continually  reiterated,  "  People  will  soon  forget  me. 
My  head  is  not  being  turned  by  what  you  say."  Then 
her  sudden  departure  from  the  city,  when  she  left  the 
office  without  a  word  to  anyone  as  to  her  destination, 
served  again  to  mark  her  distaste  for  publicity.  The 
strange  contradiction  in  her  open  public  life  and  her 
intense  desire  for  privacy  is  explained  in  the  habit  of 
a  lifetime  of  devoting  herself  to  the  consideration  of 
her  work  and  the  Interests  of  others.  Her  mind  had 
been  trained  to  handle  affairs,  consequently  she  resents 
any  attempt  to  turn  this  faculty  to  the  study  of  what 
she  considers  petty  personal  matters.    In  most  of  such 


Ella  Flagg  Young  225 

questions,  however,  her  keen  sense  of  humor  prevented 
her  from  becoming  morose  or  suspicious. 

Mrs.  Young's  nature  is  intensely  religious.  In  a 
mind  like  hers,  religious  beliefs  are  closely  akin  to 
aesthetic  feeling.  The  order  and  perfection  of  life,  the 
entirety  of  human  endeavor,  are  really  founded  on  a 
faith  in  the  rightness  of  the  world  of  man.  Her  re- 
ligion was  closely  akin,  also,  to  her  doctrine  of  democ- 
racy. Unity  of  mankind  is  found  in  the  independent 
judgment  of  each  in  matters  that  concern  all.  One  of 
her  beliefs  was  that  of  the  sacredness  of  the  individual's 
right  to  judge  and  to  live  according  to  his  judgments. 

This  brief  review  of  the  interests  of  Ella  Flagg 
Young  must  suffice  to  show  the  multiplicity  of  her 
interests  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  singleness  of  her 
purpose.  Seldom  does  one  find  a  character  of  man  or 
woman  that  represents  the  devotion  of  a  long  life  to 
one  end  as  in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Young.  From  whatever 
angle  she  has  worked,  she  has  seen  ahead  for  the  inter- 
ests of  the  public  schools.  Her  whole  soul  has  been 
wrapped  up  in  the  solution  of  the  question  of  the  edu- 
cation of  the  young  in  Chicago  and  the  nation.  A 
tremendous  variety  of  human  Interests,  a  multiplicity 
of  lines  of  work  and  investigation,  and  a  diversity  of 
experiences,  but  with  all  these  interests  and  variations 
the  possession  of  a  completely  unified  purpose  and  out- 
look upon  life  which  have  never  wavered  in  whatever 
situation  she  found  herself,  characterize  her  life.  Her 
success  is  to  be  measured  in  terms  of  civic  enlighten- 
ment of  the  future,  but  her  efforts  of  more  than  half  a 
century  have  a  directness  and  a  vision  that  point  to 
a  great  mind  and  a  strong  heart. 


APPENDIX 


ELLA  FLAGG  YOUNG'S  WRITINGS  AND  ADDRESSES 

That  Mrs.  Young  has  thought  out  and  discussed  some  of  the 
most  vital  modern  educational  issues,  the  following  bibliography 
of  her  addresses  and  books  will  show.  While  the  list  is  not  a 
long  one  and  while  the  individual  contributions  are  usually  brief, 
each  one  is  packed  with  the  thoughts  and  the  struggles  that  go 
to  solve  new  problems. 

Beginning  in  1887,  Mrs.  Young  has  a  long  series  of  addresses 
delivered  before  the  National  Education  Association.  These 
are  arranged  in  chronological  order.  In  addition  to  these  ad- 
dresses she  has  contributed  a  great  number  of  speeches  and  short 
papers  to  other  educational  bodies,  all  of  which  have  appeared 
in  newspapers  and  educational  magazines,  only  a  few  of  which 
are  listed  here. 

The  most  ambitious  of  Mrs.  Young's  writings  consist  of  the 
four  monographs  published  in  1902  while  she  was  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Chicago.  And,  finally,  her  reports  as  superintendent  of 
schools  form  an  important  unit  in  her  educational  writings. 

"How  to  Teach  Parents  to  Discriminate  Between  Good  and  Bad 
Teaching."  Proceedings  of  National  Education  Association, 
1887,  pp.  245-249. 

"Grading  and  Classification."  Proceedings  of  National  Educa- 
tion Association,  1893,  pp.  83-86. 

"Literature  in  Elementary  Schools."  Proceedings  of  National 
Education  Association,  1896,  pp.  111-117. 

"Isolation  in  the  School."  Proceedings  of  National  Education 
Association,  1901,  p.  363. 

"Saving  Time  in  Elementary  and  Secondary  Education."  Pro- 
ceedings of  National  Education  Association,  1903,  pp.  322- 
328. 

"The  Influence  of  the  City  Normal  School  or  Training  School." 
Proceedings  of  National  Education  Association,  1906,  pp. 
121-124. 

227 


228  Appendix 

"The  Educational  Progress  of  Two  Years."  Proceedings  of 
National  Education  Association,  1907,  pp.  383-405. 

"Reciprocal  Relations  Between  Subject-Matters  in  Secondary 
Education."    Educational  Bi-Monthly,  Vol.  iii,  p.  75, 

"The  School  and  the  Practice  of  Ethics."  Proceedings  of  Na- 
tional Education  Association,  1908,  pp.  102-108. 

"Hypothesis  in  Education."  Proceedings  of  National  Education 
Association,  191 1,  pp.  87-93. 

"Present  Status  of  Education  in  America  in  Elementary 
Schools."  Proceedings  of  National  Education  Association, 
191 1,  pp.  183-186. 

"Vocational  Training  of  Girls."  Proceedings  of  National  Edu- 
cation Association,  1915,  p.  125. 

"Democracy  and  Education."  Journal  of  Education,  July  6, 
1916. 

"The  Secular  Free  Schools."    School  and  Society,  July  15,  1916. 

Ethics  in  the  School.    The  University  of  Chicago  Press.    1902. 

Some  Types  of  Modern  Educational  Theory.  The  University  of 
Chicago  Press.     1902. 

Scientific  Method  in  Education.    Decennial  Publications  of  the 
University  of  Chicago,  Vol.  iii.    The  University  of  Chicago 
Press. 
In  the  Proceedings  of  the  Board  of  Education  for  the  years 

1910  to  1915,  will  be  found  the  reports  made  by  Mrs.  Young 

while  Superintendent  of  Schools. 


II 

THE  CHICAGO  PXJBLIC  SCHOOLS  AND  COURSES  OF  STUDV 
IN  1861  AND  IN  1916 

The  following  exhibit  makes  clear  the  remarkable  progress 
made  during  the  last  half-century  in  the  opportunities  for  edu- 
cation provided  by  the  Chicago  schools.  The  extraordinary 
development  was  one  in  which  Mrs.  Young  shared,  and  which 
she  did  much  to  initiate  and  develop. 

In  1 86 1  Chicago  had  one  high  school;  today  she  has  twenty- 
two.  The  total  number  of  the  different  courses  given  in  the 
high  schools  today  is  twenty-one,  whereas  in  1861  there  were 


Appendix  229 

but  three,  and  they  but  partially  differentiated.  In  1861  there 
was  no  laboratory  or  shop  work  offered  in  any  of  the  schools, 
while  now  equipment  represents  an  expenditure  of  many 
thousands  of  dollars. 


HIGH  SCHOOL  COURSES  IN  CHICAGO  IN   1861 
Four-Year  Courses  Two- Year  Course 

English  or  General.  Normal  Training  Course. 

Classical,    differing    from    the 

English  by  offering  Latin  in 

the  first  two  years. 

Work  in  all  courses  was  wholly  academic  and  required.  There 
was  no  laboratory  or  shop  work.    , 


HIGH  SCHOOL   GENERAL   COURSE  IN   1861 

FIRST   YEAR 

First  Term. ..  .Algebra,  German  or  Latin,  Descriptive  Geog- 
raphy. 

Second  Term.  .Algebra,  German  or  Latin,  English  Grammar. 

Third  Term. .  .Arithmetic,  German  or  Latin,  Physical  Geog- 
raphy. 

SECOND  YEAR 

First  Term ....  Algebra,  German  or  Latin,  Universal  History. 
Second  Term.  .Geometry,  German  or  Latin,  Universal  History. 
Third  Term. .  .Geometry,  German  or  Latin,  Universal  History, 
Botany. 

THIRD    YE-^R 

First  Term. ..  .Geometry,  German  or  Latin  or  French,  Phys- 
iology, Rhetoric. 

Second  Term.  .Trigonometry,  German  or  Latin  or  French, 
Natural  Philosophy,  English  Literature. 

Third  Term. .  .Mensuration,  Navigation  and  Surveying,  German 
or  Latin  or  French,  Natural  Philosophy,  English  Literature. 


230  Appendix 


FOURTH  YEAR 

First  Term Astronomy,  German  or  Latin  or  French,  Intel- 
lectual Philosophy,  Constitution  of  United  States,  Bookkeep- 
ing. 

Second  Term . .  Chemistry,  German  or  Latin  or  French,  Logic, 
Political  Economy, 

Third  Term ...  Geology  and  Mineralogy,  German  or  Latin  or 
French,  Moral  Science,  Political  Economy. 

Note. — A  limited  amount  of  English  Literature  was  provided  for 
two  terms.  All  science  was  taught  from  textbooks.  The  course  was 
well  named  "  general  "  and  was  planned  to  offset  the  narrow  classical 
course. 


GRADED  COURSE  OF  STUDY  ADOPTED  IN  i86i 

This  was  the  first  graded  course  in  Illinois.  It  was  much  in 
advance  of  the  times  and  was  largely  merely  a  paper  course, 
expressing  theory  of  a  course  rather  than  the  actual  practice. 

Grades  ten  to  one,  beginning  with  the  tenth  or  lowest 
primary — 

Tenth  grade,  primary,  required  six  months  to  complete: 
Oral  instruction,  talk  about  objects. 
Reading,  charts. 

Arithmetic,  numerals  I  to  10,  addition. 
Drawing  from  tablets,  printing. 
Physical  exercises. 

Ninth  Grade,  required  eight  months  to  complete : 

Oral  instruction. 
Reading,  primer. 
Arithmetic,  numerals  i  to  lOO. 
Drawing  as  above. 
Physical  exercises. 

Eighth  grade,  required  eight  months  to  complete: 
Oral  instruction. 
Reading,  spelling. 
Arithmetic  to  subtraction. 
Drawing. 
Physical  exercises. 


Appendix  231 

Seventh  grade,  required  nine  months  to  complete: 

Oral  instruction. 

Reading,  first  reader  finished. 

Spelling. 

Arithmetic,  addition  and  subtraction. 

Drawing. 

Physical  exercises. 

Sixth  grade,  required  nine  months  to  complete : 

Oral  lessons. 

Reading,  including  spelling,  half  of  second  reader. 

Arithmetic,  first  book  finished. 

Script  and  drawing  from  tablets. 

Physical  exercises. 

Fifth  grade,  required  one  year  to  complete: 

Oral  lessons,  including  some  unorganized  history  and  geog- 
raphy. 

Reading,  spelling,  second  reader  finished. 

Arithmetic,  Colburn's  First  Lessons;  multiplication  to  12x12 ; 
division  to  144-12. 

Drawing. 

Physical  exercises. 

Fourth  grade,  required  one  year  to  complete : 

Oral  lessons,  mainly  talks  about  physical  facts  and  objects. 

Reading,  portions  of  third  reader. 

Spelling. 

Arithmetic  to  long  division. 

Drawing. 

Physical  exercises. 

Construction  of  sentences,  beginning  grammar. 

Geography. 

Third  grade,  required  one  year  to  complete: 

Oral  lessons,  historical  and  physical  facts. 

Reading  in  third  and  fourth  readers. 

Colburn's  Arithmetic. 

Drawing. 

Physical  exercises. 

Grammar. 

Geography  and  history,  map  drawing. 


232  Appendix 

Second  grade,  required  one  year  to  complete : 

Oral  lessons. 

Reading,  fourth  reader  finished. 

Colburn's  Arithmetic  finished. 

Grammar. 

Geography,  map  drawing  from  memory. 

History  of  United  States. 
First  grade,  required  one  year  to  complete: 

Oral  lessons,  collection  of  general  facts  from  astronomy  to 
manners  and  morals. 

Reading,  analysis  of  words. 

Arithmetic  reviewed. 

Grammar,  parsing  and  composition. 

Geography. 

History  of  United  States  finished. 
Music  once  a  week  in  all  grades. 

Note. — ^Work  in  this  outline  was  wholly  academic.  The  names  of 
courses  given  here  mean  much  less  than  they  do  now.  For  example, 
drawing  was  very  elementary  and  mechanical.  Reading,  too,  was 
confined  entirely  to  the  text  and  did  not  include  a  wide  acquaintance 
with  literature  as  it  does  now. 


HIGH  SCHOOL  COURSES  IN  CHICAGO  SCHOOLS  IN 

1915-1916. 
Four- Year  Courses  Two- Year  Courses 

General  course.*  Accounting. 

Science  course.  Shorthand. 

Normal  preparatory  course.  Mechanical  drawing. 

Commercial  course.  Designing. 

Office  preparatory  course.  Carpentry. 

Technical  course.  Pattern  making. 

General  trades  course.  Machine  shop  work. 

Household  arts  course.  Electricity. 

Arts  course.  Household  arts. 

Architectural  course.  Printing. 

Pharmacy,  college  preparatory.  Horticulture. 

*  In  addition  to  the  above  twenty-two  courses,  Chicago  high  schools 
oflFer  two-years'  junior  college  courses,  thus  adding  two  years  to  the 
regular  four-year  high  school  work;  courses  for  apprentices  in  many 
lines  of  industry;  prevocational  courses,  offered  for  children  over  age 
for  grades. 


Appendix  233 

GENERAL  COURSE,  1915 
Required 

first  year 

First  Semester —                                                 Per,  Cr. 

English    5  .5 

Foreign   Language    (a) 5  .5 

Algebra    5  .5 

Physiology   5  .5 

Drawing  2  .1 

Music 2  .1 

Physical  Education 2  .1 

26  2.3 
Second  Semester — 

English  5  .5 

Foreign  Language  (a) 5  .5 

Algebra 5  .5 

Physiography    5  .5 

Drawing 2  .1 

Music    2  .1 

Physical  Education   2  .1 

26  2.3 

SECOND   YEAR 

First  Semester — 

English  5  .5 

Foreign  Language  (a) 5  .5 

Geometry  or  Ancient  History 5  .5 

Drawing  2  .1 

Music    2  .1 

Physical  Education   2  .1 

21  1.8 
Second  Semester — 

English  5  .5 

Foreign  Language  (a) 5  .5 

Geometry  or  Ancient  History 5  .5 

Drawing  2  .1 

Music    2  .1 

Physical  Education   2  .1 

21  1,8 


234  Appendix 

Pupils  in  the  General  Course  must  take  at  some  time  in  their 
course  Algebra  or  Plane  Geometry,  and  a  year  of  History. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  third  year  the  pupil  may  select  either 
of  the  two  courses  given  below. 


THIRD  YEAR 

(a)  Language  and  History 

First  Semester — 

English  5  ,5 

Foreign  Language  (a) 5  .5 

Foreign  Language  (b)  or  History 5  .5 

Physical  Education  2  .1 

17  1.6 

Second  Semester — 

English  , 5  .5 

Foreign  Language  (a) 5  .5 

Foreign  Language  (b)  or  History ,....  5  .5 

Physical  Education   , 2  .1 

17  1.6 

(b)  Science 

First  Semester — 

English  5  .5 

Choose  two  sciences  or  one  science  and  math- 
ematics, or  one  science  and  technical  work 

14  or  12  or  17  I.O 

Physical  Education   2  .1 

21  or  19  or  24  1.6 

Second  Semester — 
English   5  .5 

Choose  two  sciences  or  one  science  and  math- 
ematics, or  one  science  and  technical  work 

14  or  12  or  17  1.0 

Physical  Education , 2  .1 

21  or  19  or  24  1.6 


Appendix  235 


FOURTH   YEAR 

(a)  Language  and  History 
First  Semester — 

English 5  .5 

Foreign  Language  (a)  or  (b) 5  .5 

Foreign   Language    (b)    or    (a)    or   History 

and  Civics   5  .5 

Physical  Education   2  .1 

17 
Second  Semester — 

English   5 

Foreign  Language  (a)  or  (b) 5 

Foreign   Language    (b)    or    (a)    or   History 

and  Civics   5  .5 

Physical  Education   2 

17  1.6 

(b)  Science* 
First  Semester — 

English 5  .5 

Choose    two    sciences,    or    one    science    and 
mathematics,  or  one  science  and  technical 

work 14,  12  or  17  i.o 

Physical  Education    2  .1 

21  or  19  or  24  1.6 

Choose   two    sciences,    or   one    science    and 

mathematics,  or  one  science  and  technical 

work 14,  12  or  17  l.o 

Physical  Education   2  .t 

16  or  14  or  19  I.I 

In  addition  to  the  required  studies  given  above,  students  must 
complete  satisfactorily  enough  optional  studies  to  make  seven- 
teen credits  at  the  close  of  their  high  school  course. 


*  The  elective  work   in  this  course   is  large.     All   science  courses 
include  laboratory  work. 


236 


Appendix 


ELEMENTARY  COURSE  FOR  CHICAGO  SCHOOLS  FOR 

1915-1916 

ACADEMIC  COURSE 

Subjects  by  Grades  and  Half- Years 

first  grade 


FIRST  SEMESTER 

English,  Spelling 
Song  Singing 
Art-Construction 
Physical  Education 

English,  Spelling 
Song  Singing 
Art-Construction 
Physical  Education 
English,  Spelling 

English,  Spelling 
Mathematics 
Song  Singing 
Art-Construction 
Physical  Education 

English,  Spelling 
Mathematics 
Song  Singing 
Art-Construction 
Teacher's  Selection 

English  (a) 

Spelling 
Mathematics 
Music 

Art  and  Industrial  Arts 
Physical  Education 


SECOND  SEMESTER 

English,  Spelling 
Song  Singing 
Art-Construction 
Physical  Education 

SECOND  GRADE 

Number  through  Art-Construc- 
tion 
Song  Singing 
Physical  Education 
Teacher's  Selection 

THIRD  GRADE 

English,  Spelling 
Mathematics 
Song  Singing 
Physical  Education 
Teacher's  Selection 

FOURTH  GRADE 

English,  Spelling 
Mathematics 
Song  Singing 
Oral  Geography 
Physical  Education 

FIFTH  GRADE 

English  (b) 

Spelling 
Geography 
Music 

Physical  Education 
Teacher's  Selection 


(a)  Emphasis  upon  oral  and  written  composition. 

(b)  Emphasis  on  Literature. 


/Appendix 


237 


SIXTH   GRADE 


English  (a) 

Spelling 
Mathematics 
Art  and  Industrial  Arts 
Boys'  Woodwork 
Girls'  Cooking 
Physical  Education 
Teacher's  Selection 


English  (a) 

Spelling 
Geography 
Penmanship 
Music 

Physical  Education 
Teacher's  Selection 


English  (b) 
Spelling 
Oral  Arithmetic 
Geography 
Music 
Penmanship 


SEVENTH  GRADE 


English  (b) 

Spelling 
Mathematics 
Art  and  Industrial  Arts 
Boys'  Woodwork 
Girls'  Cooking 
Penmanship 


EIGHTH  GRADE 


English  (a) 

Spelling 
History  and  Civics 
Geography  (Including  Chicago 

Course) 
Music 
Physical  Education 


English  (b) 

Spelling 
History  and  Civics 
Mathematics 
Art  and  Industrial  Arts 
Boys'  Woodwork 
Girls'  Sewing 
Teacher's  Selection 


German  optional  in  grammar  grades. 

Humaneness   and   Moral    Training    incorporated    in   English 
and  History. 

A   two-year   kindergarten    course   precedes    this    elementary 
course. 
There  is  departmental  work  in  the  upper  grades. 


238  Appendix 

THE  INDUSTRIAL   COURSE 
For  Sixth,  Seventh,  and  Eighth  Grades  in  Selected  Schools 

Classes  taking  this  course  will  devote  approximately  two 
hours  a  day  to  industrial  work,  two  hours  a  day  to  academic 
work  and  one  hour  a  day  to  physical  education,  music,  study, 
recesses  and  general  work. 

The  industrial  work  is  under  the  supervision  of  the  Depart- 
ments of  Manual  Training  and  Household  Arts.  Details  of 
projects  to  be  undertaken  and  plans  of  work  will  be  determined 
by  the  Supervisors  of  these  Departments,  < 

Art  is  transferred  to  the  industrial  work. 

In  the  academic  subjects  the  teachers  are  directed  to  follow 
the  outlines  in  the  elementary  course,  making  treatment  in  each 
subject  less  detailed.  They  give  special  attention  to  penmanship 
and  the  writing  of  business  letters.  In  arithmetic,  the  problems 
are  connected  closely  with  the  work  in  the  industrial  subjects. 
The  commercial  phases  of  geography  and  history  are  em- 
phasized. 


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